Fleetwood Mac, in many ways, was ahead of its time.
The music, well, that was pretty good. The band crafted a boatload of hit songs that remain radio staples today.
No matter what you think of the music, though, you have to admit that the group's behavior away from the stage and studio showed some pop culture prescience.
Songwriting partners Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks were lovers... until they weren't. Bass player John McVie was married to the keyboard player / vocalist Christine and their union formed the bedrock of the band ... until it dissolved.
Imagine if Fleetwood Mac -- formed in England as a blues rock band during the late 1960s -- had ruled the charts during the era of tabloid TV shows, gossip Web sites and the like. The underlying soap operas may have short-circuited the band's creative mojo. Heck, that almost happened, anyway.
The tensions between the remaining players -- Christine McVie has retired and isn't with the group -- will be evident when the Mighty Mac brings its "Unleashed" tour to town for a show Monday night at the Bradley Center.
"We are a group of great contradictions, a group that in some strange way ... the members don't necessarily have any business being in a band together because of the range of sensibilities is disparate," Buckingham said during a pre-tour conference call.
"But that, in fact, is what makes Fleetwood Mac what it is. It's the whole being greater than the parts. It's the kind of energy that is created from that kind of contrast in personalities."
The "Unleashed" tour, which began March 1 in Pittsburgh, represents the band's first road trek since 2004 and, as Fleetwood pointed out in the conference call, the first when the group wasn't promoting an album.
Though there are plans to release a CD / DVD edition of the 1977 smash "Rumours" -- complete with unreleased material, demos and video footage -- the group seems a bit coy about the prospect of creating new music together.
Fortunately, the oldies still have some life.
Previous stops on the tour have covered 23 songs over more than 2 1/2 hours, with Buckingham's nimble guitar work and passionate vocal delivery stealing the show on many nights.
Maybe that's because he is the youngest member in the band. (He's 59). Nicks, who is 61, still flows around in billowy dresses and platform heels. Though she's lost some of her vocal range, she still wrings emotion from the lyric in classic's like "Landslide" and "Gold Dust Woman."
Fleetwood, 61, and McVie, 63, form a solid rhythm section capable of great heights on songs like "Oh Well," which predated the arrival of Buckingham / Nicks and still brings down the house in concert.
"This is truly a new experience for Fleetwood Mac to go out and play songs that we believe and hope people are going to be familiar with and love," Fleetwood said on the conference call.
There is nothing wrong with that, right?
"What it does is it kind of frees you up to enjoy each other a little bit more as people," Buckingham said. "And the mantra is really more 'Let's just have a good time' and value the friendships and the history that really underpins this whole experience that we've had over these years."
Host of “The Drew Olson Show,” which airs 1-3 p.m. weekdays on The Big 902. Sidekick on “The Mike Heller Show,” airing weekdays on The Big 920 and a statewide network including stations in Madison, Appleton and Wausau. Co-author of Bill Schroeder’s “If These Walls Could Talk: Milwaukee Brewers” on Triumph Books. Co-host of “Big 12 Sports Saturday,” which airs Saturdays during football season on WISN-12. Former senior editor at OnMilwaukee.com. Former reporter at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
