Neil Finn has opened up on his brief tenure in Fleetwood Mac and how the “weight” of the band’s legacy held them back.
The Crowded House frontman joined the group in 2017, following the departure of singer and guitarist Lindsey Buckingham, alongside Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers guitarist Mike Campbell, and toured the world with the group’s ‘An Evening With Fleetwood Mac’ show.
Billed as a celebration of their 50-year history, the trek opened with a varied setlist of classic singles and deep cuts – such as Hypnotized, Storms, Tell Me All The Things You Do and Isn’t It Midnight – but over its duration became more of a greatest hits run.
“It’s a shame in a way, because it’s the weight of the whole legacy that keeps them from thinking, ‘Wouldn’t it be fun to do this, that or the other?’,” says Neil in RETROPOP’s June 2024 edition. “You know, they’ve not played in Japan or South America [for many years]. There’s all these places that you go, ‘Wow, they could do really well there’, and you’d think they’d want to do it.
“They didn’t have much interest in even playing in Europe, because it was less important for them than being in America. And I don’t say that in a critical way, but doing Glastonbury – they didn’t see the romance of doing something like that. I put a pitch in for that…”
He too was keen on delving further into the band’s vault but, according to Neil, the group was reluctant to deviate too far from the expected. “Initially, it was like, ‘Oh, we could do Station Man’, and all these really cool songs,” he offers.
“We did Hypnotized for a while, which is a fucking great song, but anything where the audience slightly dropped became difficult to keep in the set because there’s so many hits to get through. So they kind of fell off the way a little bit, which was a shame.
“I also wanted them to do Albatross,” he reveals. “I wanted to start with Albatross when we got to the UK and they looked at me like I was mad. Mick probably got it, and I don’t think they’ve done it since Peter Green was in the band – maybe early on with Lindsey…”
Although Fleetwood Mac’s latest line-up didn’t record any original music together, it did see Neil team up with Stevie Nicks and Christine McVie on the charity single Find Your Way Back Home – one of the final recordings from the late singer and keyboard player.
“It was for the benefit of a new homeless shelter and Stevie did a lovely vocal on that,” he smiles. “Christine sang on the end of it too, which was the last time I saw her. We were in the dressing room at the Palladium in London doing the Peter Green benefit tribute and I just got her to sing it in the dressing room with my laptop, microphone and Pro Tools.
“I’d say that’s probably one of her last recordings, but what an amazing legacy of songs she has…”
