rone | lindsey buckingham @ flint center (Reply)

Kim and i went to see Lindsey Buckingham play at the Flint Center a week and a half ago. He seemed a bit shy at first, but as the show went on, his music got louder and his performing persona came out fully fledged. Kim and i sat in the front of the balcony, and the music was almost unbearably loud there. Buckingham changed guitars after every song; i presume he's extremely finicky about having it in tune, as a couple of times he seemed to switch to another model of the same guitar.

I didn't compile an exact playlist, but memory suggests that he played:

Fleetwood Mac

"World Turning"
"I'm So Afraid" (long, reworked version)
"Second Hand News"
"Never Going Back Again"
"Go Your Own Way"
"Tusk"
"Big Love"
"Red Rover"
"Steal Your Heart Away"
"Say Goodbye" (the last three are from the recent FM album Say You Will, which contains tracks from an aborted solo project)

Solo work

"Trouble"
"Go Insane"
"Holiday Road"
"Not Too Late"
"Cast Away Dreams"
"Under The Skin"
"Show You How"

As an introduction to "Go Insane", he read a poem he wrote called "The Sardonic World".

The world was calling you away
And your leaving was just a way
of staying with what you'd come to say

This pain was a poem slowly written
Torn from the book
and cast into a corner of the attic
where no one could look

This rage for all to see
caught fire and burned all around me
`til there was nothing left to burn

Now I stand alone in these attic bones
And re-read that poem
all yellowed with age

Tears heal such as healing is
So I cast that page into the ashes
And there is no blame, only shades of regret
And those too will fade as the world calls me away

I had no idea "Holiday Road" was one of his songs. He played it during the encore, so i thought it was a cover. He does cover Donovan's "To Try for the Sun" on Under the Skin, but i was disappointed that he didn't play it during the concert. He also didn't play anything off Out of the Cradle, which was also disappointing and a little surprising (would've loved to see "Wrong"). There were another couple of songs i couldn't identify.

Overall, it was an excellent show. Buckingham knows his way around a guitar and a stage, and a stage with a guitar. His drummer played electronic drums, which wouldn't normally bother me except it was obvious from the sound. An amusing moment occurred when a yokel yelled, "Lindsey, that song ROCKED!" Buckingham's rejoinder was, "You sound surprised."