Reviewed by Ian Phillips.
By Fleetwood Mac, BMG 2021.
A big thank you goes out to my friend Neil from Services Australia for providing me with this, and the new Billy Gibbons album, for review.
Like me he’s a blues tragic through and through.
On the 25th of February 2020, Mick Fleetwood organised a concert at the London Palladium to celebrate the life and music of his friend Peter Green who, along with Mic Fleetwood, Jeremy Spencer, and John McVie, was one of the founders of Fleetwood Mac.
The concert itself was three years in the making and involved many of Mick’s friends volunteering to perform because each one of them had been inspired in some way by Peter Green’s songwriting and/or his remarkable guitar playing.
The list of performers at the concert gives some indication of the breadth of Peter’s influence and legacy.
Many won’t come as a surprise because they either played with Fleetwood Mac or are blues players themselves: John Mayall, Jonny Lang, Rick Vito, Jeremy Spencer, Christine McVie, Andy Fairweather Low, Steven Tyler, Bill Wyman (Rolling Stones), Dave Bronze, and Ricky Peterson all fall into this category.
For other performers the link may not be as obvious.
It’s easy to hear the blues influence in Pete Townshend’s work but it wasn’t until I read the notes that came with this album that I found out that Pete Townshend lifted the riff for Won’t Get Fooled Again from Peter Green’s Station Man.
Apparently, at the show Townshend started his performance ofStation Man by playing the opening riff for Won’t Get Fooled Again before stopping and informing the audience “now I’ll play the original”.
Other interesting performers include Billy Gibbons of ZZ Top who does a great version of Doctor Brown and Kirk Hammett of Metallica who not only slayed The Green Manalishi (With the Two Prong Crown) but he did it playing Peter Green’s old guitar which is part of Kirk’s guitar collection.
Neil Finn’s involvement is not surprising, considering that he was playing with Fleetwood Mac during this time, but what I didn’t know was that he left the recording sessions in L.A. for his new album, Dreamers Are Waiting, flew to London for the concert, and then immediately flew back to L.A. to continue recording.
David Gilmour, being one of the world’s great guitarists with obvious links to Peter Green’s sound and technique, is a no brainer but Mick tells the delightful story that David was initially unsure because “he didn’t think he could do the music justice.”
His beautiful renditions of Oh Well part 2 and Albatross tell us otherwise.
And then there’s Noel Gallagher, when he heard about the show he simply invited himself along.
It may be what you’d expect but it turns out that he is a dedicated Peter Green fan and he informed Mick that every time that Oasis did a sound check they’d play two Peter Green songs.
This double CD is an absolute gem and my wife has instructed me that a stream is insufficient, I must order the hard copy.
