Come Together: Fleetwood Mac – Rumours Aotea Centre July 9, 2022

New Zealand’s finest come together to pay tribute to Fleetwood Mac and specifically their 1977 multi-platinum album, Rumours.

This is Part 3 of the Come Together series, previously The Rolling Stones and Elton John got the tribute treatment and following this Bowie’s Ziggy Stardust and Tom Petty’s Damn The Torpedoes will be brought to life.

There’s a lot of Fleetwood Mac before and after Rumours and the first set begins with a tribute to founding guitarist Peter Green, first with 1968’s Albatross, then Black Magic Woman featuring the triple guitar attack of Brett Adams, Jol Mulholland and Laughton Kora, with Kora on vocals.

The blues continues with Man Of The World, Need Your Love So Bad and Stop Messin’ Round, giving the band, Mike Hall (bass), Alistair Deverick (drums) and Matthias Jordan (keys) plenty of opportunity to “Come Together”.

Then we jump from the 60s to the 80s as Mel Parsons fronts up for Little Lies (1987’s Tango In The Night). Mel’s voice is a perfect fit for Christine McVie’s sleek, 80’s pop song.

Then Julia Deans steps up to encourage some dancing in the aisles as she goes back to 1982 with Gypsy.

And then its Dianne Swann’s turn to show off her stuff with 1975’s Landslide.

The first set carries on with more choice nuggets not from Rumours including Rhiannon, Big Love and Say You Love Me as a very enthusiastic Julia Deans continued to get the audience up and dancing.

After the break, it was all Rumours.

I’m sure you know the tracklist, so no surprises here but plenty of great songs and great performances.

Highlights include Matthias Jordan’s turn behind the mic, singing Go Your Own Way while his 14-year-old daughter played bass.

Dianne Swann presented us with a lovely version of Oh Daddy (a lesser-known Rumours track) but for me, the highlight was The Chain.

By the time they got to Gold Dust Woman, it was all hands on deck as Julia suggested we “get your witchy on”.

But wait…there was more…

The encore was a blistering Oh Well, driven by Brett Adams’ guitar and then a thunderous Tusk to bring the house down.

So there you go, more classics from the 70s. And with Bowie and Petty shows coming up there’s no sign of this series ending.

Although I’d be keen to hear tributes from a few later artists and albums…maybe Talking Heads, R.E.M., Prince, Marianne Faithfull…what do you think?

Marty Duda

Click on any image to view a photo gallery by Ivan Karczewski

Set 1:

1. Albatross
2. Black Magic Woman
3. Man Of The World
4. Need Your Love So Bad
5. Stop Messin’ Round
6. Little Lies
7. Gypsy
8. Landslide
9. Seven Wonders
10. Rhiannon
11. Big Love
12. Say You Love Me
13. Sara

Set 2:

1. Second Hand News
2. Dreams
3. Never Going Back Again
4. Don’t Stop
5. Go Your Own Way
6. Songbird
7. The Chain
8. You Make Lovin’ Fun
9. I Don’t Want To Know
10. Oh Daddy
11. Gold Dust Woman
12. Oh Well
13. Tusk

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