Tampa Calling

A little more than halfway through their set at the St. Pete Times Forum last night, Fleetwood Mac played “Say You Love Me.” A Christine McVie song. She is the only member of the re-assembled (yet again) Fleetwood Mac who opted out — she departed, apparently for good, in 1998 — and to these ears her presence was sorely missed.

Photo: Jamie Ostrand

Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham traded verses on “Say You Love Me,” and although it was nice they included the song, this version lacked the airiness of the original pop gem. Buckingham played the brief guitar solo note-for-note, which made the performance seem obligatory.

“Say You Love Me” was also a reminder of all the McVie songs Fleetwood Mac did not play last night. And seeing as Chrissie was always my favorite of the combative quintet, to me the concert was left lacking.

Fleetwood Mac — which also included drummer Mick Fleetwood, bassist John McVie, two sidemen and three female backup singers — ran through a compendium of their mostly impressive songbook, touching on some obscure stuff (“I Know I’m Not Wrong”) but mostly sticking to such recognizable tunes and monster hits as “Dreams,” “The Chain,” “Monday Morning,” “Gypsy,” “Sara,” et al.

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Digable Planets has canceled their U.S. tour, which includes their April 17 stop at Crowbar. The trio has broken up again for the same reasons they broke up before — irreconcilable differences. Here’s are some key quotes from the all-caps letter the band sent to fans via MySpace (I’ve de-capped it for your reading convenience): “…The 3 insects from outer space have been infected like every other great group in hip hop history by irreconcilable differences between the principle members … Mary Ann Viera formerly known as Ladybug has decided at the last minute that she wants to talk away from the group and not honor this tour … The other two members have no choice but to cancel this tour and regroup … The group members will go their separate ways but group creator and producer Butterfly along with Doodlebug will continue to collaborate on music and in the near future will announce the introduction of a new music collective that they are putting together … This does not take away from the legacy created by the Digable Planets in 1993 … but it does bring us to the end of an era …”

Another sign the economy is in the can: ticket discounts at the big name shows. Amway Arena is offering $35 tickets to Fleetwood Mac’s April 20, and Ford Amphitheatre is offering a special weekend sale for the April 26 Nickelback concert ($25 reserved, $15 lawn if purchased between 10 a.m. April 3 to 10 p.m. April 5). Both are Live Nation venues. I think we’re going to start to see alot more of this as the months progress and sales get slower and slower. Read the rest of this entry »

This just in from Woody, our PR pal at LiveNation concerts:

AN EVENING WITH FLEETWOOD MAC
COMES TO ST. PETE TIMES FORUM
WEDNESDAY, APRIL 22ND
ON SALE MONDAY, JANUARY 26TH

The “Unleashed” Tour, beginning on March 1 in Pittsburgh, is an epic cross-country trek featuring 44 shows in major markets. The tour will include all of the Mac’s many greatest hits from over the course of the band’s extraordinary career. Fleetwood Mac, the multi-Grammy winning, multi-platinum Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductees are back on the road for the first time in five years following several successful solo projects.

Tickets for the Live Nation produced tour are $149.50, $79.50 and $49.50, and go on sale to the public on January 26th at LiveNation.com and Ticketmaster outlets.