Rolling Stone Review of The Dance

Issue 768 - September 4, 1997

By --JANCEE DUNN

Remember when you bought Rumours and played it to death? Well, that was 20 years ago, my friend. Since then, the group's classic lineup - Mick Fleetwood, John McVie, Christine McVie, Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham - has withstood more breakups than Melrose Place, but 1997 marks the return of the Mac. In honor of Rumours' 20th anniversary comes The Dance, culled from three live performances on a Burbank, Calif. soundstage. It's a whopping 17 tracks (three fewer than Tusk!), including all the hits and four new songs.

Fleetwood Mac deliver the old tunes here with note-perfect skill and obvious enthusiasm. The voices are a bit weathered, but few bands harmonize as beautifully. Nicks avoids the high notes on "Landslide," but a few decades' perspective adds a world-weary dimension to lines like "Can I face the seasons of my life?/I don't know." The Mac don't tinker much with the hits, although Christine McVie's "Everywhere" has a salsafied, everybody-onto-the-lido-deck feel, and Buckingham turns in a stark, flamenco-laced "Big Love."

The new songs blend in seamlessly, sounding at once like familiar old pals. "Bleed to Love Her," via Buckingham, is a folksy, gentle, early-Sunday-morn tune, while his jaunty "My Little Demon" sounds like "I Don't Want to Know" on speed. The best track is "Silver Springs," a lovelorn song that Nicks wrote 20 years ago. She's at her contemplative- gypsy best, and it's an instant Mac classic. Her new "Sweet Girl" is an Allman-esque Southern-rock ramble. Finally, there's Christine McVie's "Temporary One," a bouncy, we'll-meet-again ditty. "The sea that divides us is a temporary one," she sings, "and the bridge will bring us back together." Sounds like the theme song for a certain inveterate group.