Fleetwood Bac

It was actually my husband, Mike, who suggested we make the long trip to Southampton last night to see FB. He came with me to The Robin and was pretty keen to see them again asap! My good taste has obviously rubbed off on him! Rachel Lewis came along with us as did a couple of our friends who admitted they had never heard of Fleetwood Mac (blasphemy!!)

Anyway, last night gig was awesome. The venue was pretty cool. It had a bar and dance area downstairs and a balcony area above. We were naturally right in front of the stage ;) It was really noticeable that a lot of the songs were a lot tighter than even in Brierley Hill....proves the point that Fleetwood Bac just keep getting better with each gig they play.
They played nothing new to the set last night but I heard them do Albatross for the first time...amazing. I am pretty useless at remembering set-lists but I believe they started with Second Hand News and then went on to play all our faves.....Gold Dust Woman (breathtaking), Oh Well, You Make Loving Fun (Lynne....you keep getting better and better!!), Rhiannon, Stop Draggin', Gypsy ( missed your twirls Mike...hehehe).....to name but a few. They played Everywhere and I wasn't expecting Eyes of the World so was pretty chuffed when they played that too! My hubby has now told me that he loves Sisters of the Moon ( good old boy!!) so he was well pleased well Lisa belted that out. Songbird was simply stunning.....even better than at Brierley Hill. I found out later that Lynne's Mum and Dad were there. I'm sure they must be very proud. I met her Mum afterwards and she said to me 'Are you the Fireflies??' LOL! I wonder what reputation we are getting for ourselves...hehehe. It was also really nice that there wasn't loud music after FB finished. We were able to stand around and chat. Had a nice long chat with Paul and Matt and put in my orders for tracks I would love to hear.....hehehe. Come on Matt....I NEED to hear Bleed To Love Her!!!!

The friends we took along had a fantastic time. They brought a T-shirt and cd-rom and want to come along with us again!! More converts!! LOL!

As is always the case I have been on the FB website this morning to see when we can catch another gig!! We will be in Devon on our hols when they play Tavistock so we might try to make that one. Other than that it will be The Robin at the end of August. Hope that some others can make it for that one. Then it will be Coventry and The Robin again for our Xmas get together.

Thanks again Matt, Lisa, Lynne, Rik and Paul for a fantastic evening. See you again soon!

Pip Fidler

Well it's just passed midnight and it's Sunday morning. Finally get to put my thoughts down on last nights Fleetwood Bac gig at 'The Brook' Southampton. With any luck, writing this will get me through to 2am so I can watch FB on the Showcase thing.

If it's incomprehensible please excuse me....I've had virtually no sleep for the last 48 hours, I've had a day with my in-laws and I just finished 1/3rd bottle of neat Bombay Sapphire gin (hic!) to get over spending a day with my in-laws!

This isn't intended to be a serious review - Pip's done that job.....you don't need me to tell you how fantastic they were...everything was spot on - AS ALWAYS.

Lisa cast her magic spell and is spending a worrying amount of time with Mike Fidler, Lynn's sexier than the real thing (according to some bloke in the audience who unwittingly addressed his remark to Lynn's Dad (whoops!), Rick's probably a better drummer than MF himself, Matt's just bloody amazing and Paul really needs to ask his mother if she ever met some bloke named McVie.

It was a very long drive to Southampton and at one point I thought we weren't going to make it on time because of the volume of traffic. Pip had invited two of her friends along and we spent the majority of the journey convincing them that Fleetwood Bac WERE worth crossing half the country, missing tea and sitting in traffic jams for. After some pretty nifty navigating we screeched to a halt outside the venue, a gnats chuff before 9pm and piled inside. The ladies virtually mainlined two bottles of Bacardi Breezer each and paid flying visits to the loo so as not to miss FB coming on stage.

You can imagine how gob-smacked we were when, after they didn't show, Matt suddenly appeared in the midst of our group, not changed - just as if he'd just strolled down to his local to see who was playing live that evening. Getting a bit anxious for my bac-fix I yelled "What the heck are you doing here, you're supposed to be up there!" at him...sorry Matt ! Anyway, turns out that they were on at 10pm instead.

At last they *finally* came on stage, and like a fine wine, the best is always worth waiting for. Without further ado they launched into 'Second Hand News' and at that moment the world was fine, everything was rosy and the alcohol had just hit my brain!

The stage was really high - so high infact that it had a swimming pool ladder to get on and off it. We were at the front with a really good view yes, but annoyingly for Pip it was the second time she'd been so close to the merchandise that she could see their nosehair-LMAO!

On my left I had Fred Astair and Ginger Rogers doing some weird stuff that I think they were calling dancing, well, whatever it was it's left a few dents in my boots from them jumping on my toes! I was getting buffeted into Pip all the time as I tried in vain to keep out of their way. I was going to yell 'pack it in' at them, but thought better of it when thinking back to Brierley Hill the words 'pot, kettle and black' all sprang to mind..lol!

However, I think we may have found a winner in the'unknown member of the audience' category in the Fireflies dancing competition. While Mike Bott has clearly taken the trophy for his wonderful gypsy twirling in the Membership category....get this...this woman behind Pip virtually limbo-danced her way through the entire 2 hours!!!!!!!

OMG I had to bite my lip to stop myself wetting myself laughing at this woman - which is really bad of me because I'm sure there was someone doing exactly the same to me and Mike at BH. But she didn't care (and neither do we) and she'd even limbo'ed her way to the front by the end of it.

By the time Lisa was winding up for that almighty finish to Rhiannon (OMG I just turned over to Sky Men and Motors for the Showcase thing....hope you boys set your video's early-LOL)....anyway back to Rhiannon. By the time Lisa was giving it some I was actually starting to feel a bit faint from lack of foot and a thumping beat in my head. Even the timely application of some New Forest Spring Water wasn't helping. I was completely lost in Bac Land.

Actually got to speak to people after the show. Pip sold some of FB's merchandise for them, gave Paul a toilet-roll-long list of songs she wants them to do while demanding Matt that he do 'Bleed to Love Her' off the Dance Album. I tell you this woman is not to be messed with! We had some interesting news on stuff they are working on so keep your ears peeled folks! Pip managed not only get her neighbours to come all the way to Southampton from Northampton for a gig, but also to part with money for the Bac Video CD-ROM and a T-shirt.