The members of Fleetwood Mac past and present have all been keeping it civil in the wake of guitarist Lindsey Buckingham’s reported firing from the band earlier this month, but we do know that Buckingham’s departure was hastened by a disagreement over an upcoming tour. In the band’s first interview since Buckingham’s departure, today Stevie Nicks tells Rolling Stone that “We were supposed to go into rehearsal in June and he wanted to put it off until November [of next year] … That’s a long time. I just did 70 shows [on a solo tour]. As soon as I finish one thing, I dive back into another. Why would we stop? We don’t want to stop playing music. We don’t have anything else to do. This is what we do.” The rest of the band was in agreement with Nicks, and so Buckingham was, well, given all the time off he could ever want. “Words like ‘fired’ are ugly references as far as I’m concerned,” Mick Fleetwood adds.
Today, the dates of that tour, featuring The Heartbreakers’ Mike Campbell and Crowded House’s Neil Finn standing in for Buckingham, have been formally announced. Speaking with Rolling Stone, Campbell says the offer to join Fleetwood Mac was a respite from the “dark place” he was in after Tom Petty’s death last year, saying, “I’ve known Stevie for years and we’ve always been very creative together.” As well as the personnel changes, Nicks says the tour will be different in that it will feature songs from Fleetwood Mac’s entire career, not just Buckingham and Nicks’ initial 1975-1987 run. (“We were never able to do that since 1975 because certain people in the band weren’t interested in doing that,” she adds coyly.)
Fleetwood Mac will traverse your various corporate-sponsored arenas of the U.S. and Canada for six months starting this coming October, beginning in Tulsa on October 3 and ending in Philadelphia in April 2019 with a month off in January. Nicks likens the split to a divorce, saying, “We were never married, but we might as well have been. Some couples get divorced after 40 years. They break their kids’ hearts and destroy everyone around them because it’s just hard. This is sad for me, but I want the next 10 years of my life to be really fun and happy.” Links to tickets to individual shows can be found on the Fleetwood Mac website.
Fleetwood Mac North American Tour
10/3—BOK Center—Tulsa, OK
10/6—United Center—Chicago, IL
10/10—KFC Yum! Center–Louisville, KY
10/12—Pinnacle Bank Arena—Lincoln, NE
10/14—Wells Fargo Arena—De Moines, IA
10/16—Bankers Life Fieldhouse—Indianapolis, IN
10/18—Sprint Center—Kansas City, MO
10/20—Scottrade Center—St. Louis, MO
10/22—Xcel Energy Center—St. Paul, MN
10/26—Quicken Loans Arena—Cleveland, OH
10/28—Wisconsin Entertainment and Sports Center—Milwaukee, WI
10/30—Little Caesars Arena—Detroit, MI
11/1—PPG Paints Arena—Pittsburgh, PA
11/3—Canadian Tire Centre—Ottawa, ON
11/5—Air Canada Centre—Toronto, ON
11/7—Nationwide Arena—Columbus, OH
11/10—Rogers Place—Edmonton, AB
11/12—Scotiabank Saddledome—Calgary, AB
11/14—Rogers Arena—Vancouver, BC
11/17—Tacoma Dome—Tacoma, WA
11/19—Moda Center—Portland, OR
11/21—SAP Center at San Jose—San Jose, CA
11/23—Golden 1 Center—Sacramento, CA
11/25—Oracle Arena—Oakland, CA
11/28—Talking Stick Resort Arena—Phoenix, AZ
11/30—T-Mobile Arena—Las Vegas, NV
12/3—Pepsi Center—Denver, CO
12/6—Save Mart Center—Fresno, CA
12/8—Viejas Arena—San Diego, CA
12/11—The Forum—Inglewood, CA
12/13—The Forum—Inglewood, CA
2/5/2019—Toyota Center—Houston, TX
2/7/2019—American Airlines Center—Dallas, TX
2/9/2019—Frank Erwin Center—Austin, TX
2/13/2019—Legacy Arena at The BJCC—Birmingham, AL
2/16/2019—Smoothie King Center—New Orleans, LA
2/18/2019—Amalie Arena—Tampa. FL
2/20/2019—BB&T Center—Ft. Lauderdale, FL
2/22/2019—Colonial Life Arena—Columbia, SC
2/24/2019—Spectrum Center—Charlotte, NC
2/27/2019—Bridgestone Arena—Nashville, TN
3/3/2019—Philips Arena—Atlanta, GA
3/5/2019—Capital One Arena—Washington, DC
3/9/2019—Boardwalk Hall—Atlantic City, NJ
3/11/2019—Madison Square Garden—New York, NY
3/13/2019—Prudential Center—Newark, NJ
3/15/2019—XL CENTER—Hartford, CT
3/20/2019—Times Union Center—Albany, NY
3/24/2019—Royal Farms Arena—Baltimore, MD
3/26/2019—KeyBank Center—Buffalo, NY
3/31/2019—TD Garden—Boston, Ma
4/5/2019—Wells Fargo Center—Philadelphia, PA