Fleetwood Mac To Explore Pre-Lindsey Buckingham Era During Upcoming Tour

Fleetwood Mac will be digging deep into their archives when they hit the road this fall—and some of the band’s earliest songs will be played for the first time since Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks joined the group more than 40 years ago. In an interview with Rolling Stone, Stevie Nicks revealed that Fleetwood Mac will finally be able to play some of the songs from the band’s Peter Green era.

Pete Green co-founded Fleetwood Mac with drummer Mick Fleetwood and guitarist Jeremy Spencer in 1967. Peter was such a force in the band that the group was known as Peter Green’s Fleetwood Mac. Green recorded three studio albums with the band before departing in 1970. By 1974, Nicks and Buckingham were on board for what would be known as Fleetwood Mac’s most successful lineup.

But ahead of Fleetwood Mac’s upcoming North American tour, the band announced a surprising new lineup—longtime guitarist and singer Lindsey Buckingham has been replaced by former Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers guitarist Mike Campbell and Crowded House singer/guitarist Neil Finn. Buckingham’s departure will now open the door for Fleetwood Mac to explore their past in a way they haven’t been able to for decades.

.@FleetwoodMac shares early version of their 1975 classic "Monday Morning" (exclusive) https://t.co/VHMEd3mA6p pic.twitter.com/xAClwF8Veq

— billboard (@billboard) January 11, 2018

Stevie Nicks revealed that the upcoming tour will feature songs from the entire history of Fleetwood Mac, not just the hits from the band’s classic lineup of the 1970s and ’80s. Nicks seemed to throw shade at Buckingham, telling Rolling Stone:

“We were never able to do that since 1975 because certain people in the band weren’t interested in doing that. Now we’re able to open the set with a lot; a raucous version of [1969’s] ‘Rattlesnake Shake’ or something. I’d also like to do [1970’s] ‘Station Man,’ which has always been one of my favorites. We’re definitely doing [1970’s] ‘Oh Well.'”

Stevie also promised that there are 10 songs the band “has” to do—expect to hear radio hits like “Rhiannon, “Dreams,” and “The Chain”—but that the expanded set leaves plenty of room to dig deep into the Mac’s songbook. Nicks explained:

“There are 10 hits we have to do. That leaves another 13 songs if you want to do a three-hour show. Then you crochet them all together and you make a great sequence and you have something that nobody has seen before except all the things they want to see are there.”

Stevie Nicks revealed the band would start rehearsals with a whopping 60 songs and then pick through them to come up with a setlist that best represents Fleetwood Mac’s history.

But Fleetwood Mac co-founder Mick Fleetwood confirmed that Lindsey Buckingham’s contributions to the band will also be represented. Mick told TMZ the band won’t be cutting “all” of the fired guitarist’s songs from their setlist when they hit the road later this year. Some of Fleetwood Mac’s biggest hits, including “Go Your Own Way” and “Tusk” were written by Buckingham.

Fleetwood Mac’s 52-date tour kicks off Oct. 3 in Tulsa and concludes in April 2019 in Philadelphia.