The Dance (1997) 


 

  1. The Chain
  2. Dreams
  3. Everywhere
  4. Rhiannon
  5. I'm So Afraid
  6. Temporary One
  7. Bleed To Lover Her
  8. Big Love
  9. Landslide
  10.Say You Love Me
  11.My Little Demon
  12.Silver Springs
  13.You Make Loving Fun
  14.Sweet Girl
  15.Go Your Own Way
  16.Tusk
  17.Don't Stop

 

The "classic" lineup reunited as a one-off at President Bill Clinton's inauguration party in 1993. At the time,they were all working on separate projects, some members helping others, they found that they were all of sudden unintentionally together working. They penned a few songs together and were loosely planning on perhaps an album together, when they decided to tour together instead.

They began by performing and recording this phenomenal show that they did for MTV. Yes, they're a bit older, and like some other seventies dinosaurs such as Pink Floyd and The Eagles, they seem to have more musicians on stage assisting in the performance of the songs than the band members themselves. Yet they all sound in top form and show us that they haven't really lost that much. Even Stevie Nicks sounds better than she has in years.

I must admit that when I first saw the track listing, I was a bit disappointed. I'm never a big fan of concerts where a lot of my favorite, well known songs are missing, and in their place are some obscure, never heard of tracks. There are a lot of those here. Mostly these are newer, unreleased songs, yet happily, they're all outstanding. Highlights are Christine McVie's Temporary One and Lindsey Buckingham's Bleed to Love Her (the only new song that I'm aware of that actually was released on a legitimate studio version later). It was also nice to see the Stevie Nicks older song Silver Springs resurrected. This was a B-side on a single from the Rumours sessions that never made the final cut, probably because of time limitations.

The old favorites sound like old favorites. The majority of them sound similar to their studio counterparts. Even the song Tusk somehow manages to follow in this fashion. They even use a real marching band on the stage. The marching band then stays for the last encore of Don't Stop, it's a bit much - but only a bit. The one song on the album that is siginificantly different from its studio counterpart is Buckingham's Big Love which is done acoustically. It's a brilliant piece that shows off just how good he his. How he manages to sound like two guitar players and sing majestically as well is a true testament of the man's talent.

A lot of critics slagged this release. I'm not sure why. It sounds as good as it possibly could considering it had been an entire decade since they last worked together. The band went on to tour following the album, and the classic lineup would split once again (Christine left) and didn't return until almost 20 years later.


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