Flashback: Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham’s Last ‘Landslide’?
Just a few weeks ago, it seemed like Fleetwood Mac were slowly building toward a reunion tour with Lindsey Buckingham. Mick Fleetwood had ruled it out as recently as January 2020, but the two ex-bandmates got in touch after Peter Green died last July and made peace. In March, Fleetwood told Rolling Stone he hoped that Buckingham could return to the band.
“I would love the elements that are not healed to be healed,” he said. “I love the fantasy that we could cross that bridge and everyone could leave with creative, holistic energy, and everyone could be healed with grace and dignity.”
Crowded House’s Neil Finn joined the group after Buckingham left, but he told Rolling Stone in June that he’d gladly step aside to make way for a reunion. “I would be delighted for them if they reconcile,” he said. “I wouldn’t lay any claim or put any obstacles in front of them.”
Last month, Buckingham told Mojo he could envision one more tour with the Rumours lineup. “It would be so appropriate for the five of us to go out again, even if you want to call it a farewell tour,” he said. “It would be great for us to share it one last time. I know Mick and Christine would love that to happen. Wait and see.”
John McVie certainly wouldn’t stand in the way of such a tour, so it really just came down to Stevie Nicks. She’d made peace with Buckingham several times in the past, and the money from a farewell tour would easily generate somewhere in the ballpark of $500 million. They could even do it Simon and Garfunkel–style where they only saw each other onstage.
But just as it started to seem plausible, Buckingham started doing interviews to promote his new self-titled solo album. The subject of Stevie Nicks inevitably came up. “I think she wanted to shape the band in her own image, a more mellow thing,” he told Rolling Stone, “and if you look at the last tour, I think that’s true.”
“I think others in the band just felt that they were not empowered enough, individually, for whatever their own reasons, to stand up for what was right,” he continued. “And so, it became a little bit like Trump and the Republicans.”
Nicks has stayed largely silent on the situation over the past few years, but this caused her to issue a statement. “It feels the time has come to shine a light on the truth,” she said. “Following an exceedingly difficult time with Lindsey at MusiCares in New York, in 2018, I decided for myself that I was no longer willing to work with him. I could publicly reflect on the many reasons why, and perhaps I will do that someday in a memoir, but suffice it to say we could start in 1968 and work up to 2018 with a litany of very precise reasons why I will not work with him.”
Bands have come back from worse situations than this. Look no further than Guns N’ Roses, the Stone Roses, the Eagles, and Van Halen with David Lee Roth for evidence. But this is pretty bad. Fleetwood Mac proved in 2018 that they could still pack arenas and even stadiums without Buckingham. Christine McVie is 78 and has recently indicated she doesn’t want to keep touring that much longer. The clock might simply run out before they can put the pieces of Fleetwood Mac back together.
The Rumours lineup last played together January 26th, 2018, at the MusiCares event at Radio City Music Hall. But it was a truncated set. Their last real show was on July 30th, 2017, at New York’s Citi Field. Midway through the night, Nicks and Buckingham played “Landslide.” As always, the performance ended with Nicks giving Buckingham a quick peck on the cheek. Check out fan-shot video right here.
Fleetwood Mac fans will continue to pray for a reunion, but things seem pretty grim right now. That Citi Field rendition could easily wind up being their final “Landslide.” There’s still time to mend fences, but Lindsey comparing Stevie to Donald Trump is definitely not a step in the right direction.
