MUSIC REVIEW: Rumours Of Fleetwood Mac - The Lowry Theatre, Salford.

As a diehard Mac fan, it was a privilege to watch and listen to a tribute band of the calibre of Rumours. The huge Lyric theatre was almost full with an audience of mixed ages with one thing in common: love of the Mac. This iconic band (the real ones) have been around for an incredible 50 years with their music still resonant, memorable and musically wonderful. The opening sequence is a video tribute from Mick Fleetwood (the real one) recommending the band and wishing us all a happy evening of nostalgia and singing along to the timeless music of Fleetwood Mac. We all knew then that we were going to be in for a really big treat. A huge stage lit up to show a classic pop set: rostra for guitar and drums, keyboards stage right, lead guitar stage left and the mic; centre stage for the lead singer.

As the stage lit up in an explosion of colour and strobe and historic video footage of the originals on a split screen cyclorama we were instantly at a Fleetwood Mac concert albeit sat down which made for some reservation to begin with. Close your eyes and Jess Harwood, performing Stevie Nicks, is the real thing. She looks as beguiling as the original, floating ethereally around prancing like the famous Miss Nicks is remembered for. She could have smiled a little more is my only grumble. Yes, I know Stevie Nicks was moody cool but a little smile would have been good. Her vocals were sublime and if you closed your eyes, you’d have been hard pressed to know it wasn’t the real thing. Her vocals on ‘Seven Wonders’ and ‘ Gypsy’ were class. Her female counterpart: Emily Gervers’ Christine McVie had a voice to die for and although she didn’t sound as much like McVie as Jess did Stevie, her ‘Songbird’ blew me away, she had better control, power and interpretation than McVie , in my opinion. Her keyboard skills were excellent too.

The audience were on their feet before the first half had finished joining in with the Mac anthems: 'Tell Me Lies', 'Chain' and 'Don’t Stop'. Note and performance perfect. The sound quality that was achieved in the Lyric by the sound engineers was outstanding.

The lead guitarist, James Harrison had a world class voice and sang the frontman, Lyndsey Buckingham’s song with love and passion and had the audience in the palm of his hand.

The second half of the evening opened with mostly songs from 1969 – celebrating the 50 years of history of the legends. However, they opened without the ladies to show how they began in a blues style set performing 'Albatross', 'Oh Well!' and 'Black Magic Woman' from when they were fronted by Peter Green. The keys player, Dave Goldberg led the numbers from this era and showed off a fine set of pipes and guitar.

The whole evening was a walk down memory lane of the band’s music, image and lasting impression they have had on millions. It was a contrasting middle set which I wasn’t as familiar with as the Nicks/Buckingham collaboration period and their folksy rock style. The rest of the 7-piece band were equally as good as the ones named with an amazing bassist, rhythm guitarist and the amazing drummer absolutely smashing those cross rhythms and riffs out of the park.

The girls returned to the stage with a slight costume change and ended the evening with most of the audience dancing, singing and clapping along to the iconic 'Rhiannon' and 'Everywhere'. If I ever get to see the ‘real’ Mac now I think I might be a little disappointed that they’d not be as good as Rumours. Highly recommended.

Reviewer - Kathryn Gorton 
on - 1/5/19