REVIEW: Fleetwood Mac dazzles crowd with classic rock 'n' roll style

Donecia Pea

They didn't have loud pyrotechnics, or any special choreographed moves and their biggest special effect was the colorful stage lighting from song to song.

It just didn't take all of that for legendary band Fleetwood Mac to give the nearly sold-out crowd what they wanted - pure classic rock and roll.

The band rocked the CenturyTel Center Saturday night for An Evening With Fleetwood Mac, one of the most anticipated concerts of the summer.

Even moments before the show began, screams, whistles, applause and even the clanging of tambourines could be heard all over the arena in excitement for the band.

"I am just so excited, I've been one of their biggest fans ever since I was in the 9th grade," said 35-year-old Maria Szwak of Bossier City who was wearing the same Fleetwood Mac T-shirt she wore 21 years ago when the band was on their Mirage tour. "I love all the classics and all the new stuff, and I've got everything on album and cassettes. Even today I was out hunting for some of their hard-to-find albums."

Fleetwood Mac - minus Christine McVie - took the predominately middle-aged crowd on a journey as they rolled through more than three decades of past hits as well as singles from the latest album Say You Will.

"We would like to thank all of you for coming to see us tonight. It's been a somewhat difficult and long, strange trip, but the point is we are here," Lindsey Buckingham said as the audience burst into applause.

Stevie Nicks warmed the crowd up with her smooth voice on the mellow hit Thunder Only Happens When It Rains. And Buckingham had everyone clapping their hands and stomping their feet to the country-flavored hit Never Going Back from their 1977 album Rumours.

And the band displayed their trademark harmony when they broke into a cappella at the end of Say You Will, the title cut from their new album.

But classic hits, including Rhiannon, Gypsey and Landslide, proved to be the crowd favorites and Buckingham brought the audience to their feet with his soul-stirring solo performance on World Turning.

Even young fans 20-year-old Josh Taylor and his wife Lana Taylor, 17, both of Keithville, had a good time. "It's even better than we expected," Josh Taylor said. "And it's a fun crowd." Lana Taylor added, "Yeah, it's kind of laid back."

"It's just a really good concert. It's what I expected it to be - a mellow classic rock concert and it's well worth the $96.50 seats I paid for," said 26-year-old Tony Anderson, who traveled from Alexandria. "They still sound just like they did in the 1970s."