If you are a Fleetwood Mac fan, chances are you were part of the crowd who thronged into Aberdeen’s His Majesty’s Theatre on Saturday night.
Those who managed to bag a ticket to the one-off show were treated to a night of amazing songs performed by very talented musicians.
The gig was one of the headline acts at this year’s True North Festival – one of the newer events in the Granite City’s cultural calendar.
Rumours: Start to End, as the name of the show suggests, involved myriad artists performing the iconic 1970s album from beginning to end.
Released 40 years ago, it was the 11th studio album by Fleetwood Mac and was their most successful outing.
The two-hour show was kicked off with a ‘greatest hits set’.
First up was Scots singer-songwriter Emma Pollock who last year wowed an audience at HMT with a celebration of Kate Bush.
This time round, she took on the classic song, Rhiannon, and once again did not disappoint.
After that, the favourites just kept coming including Seven Wonders, Little Lies, Sara and Big Love before it was time for the main event, Rumours in all its glory.
My personal highlights from the night included Be Charlotte performing Seven Wonders, who seemed to be having as much fun on stage singing it as the audience did watching her; Alice Marra’s beautiful performance of Songbird really showed off her vocal talent; and Duglas T Stewart’s animated and comedic performance of Tusk was one we were still talking about long after the show had ended.
Sam West – who was in Aberdeen a few months ago performing at a Jeff Buckley Start to End event- also wowed the crowds with his version of Big Love – in a rendition which earned him one of the biggest ovations of the night.
The concert was brought to a close with the audience up on their feet singing and dancing along to Everywhere performed by all the musicians together.
A review of this night wouldn’t be complete without recognising the talent of the backing band who worked their way through Fleetwood Mac’s back catalogue without fault.
The only thing the show was missing was more talking and interaction with the audience. It would have been great to have heard from more of the acts about why they wanted to be part of the show, why they picked a particular song and how Fleetwood Mac had inspired them.
We did get it from some acts – it was interesting to discover how Sara reminds Emma Pollock of her father-in-law and family gatherings, while hearing it every week at open mic nights nearly made Louis Abbot hate the song Landslide.
However, given the level of talent on display and the jam-packed line-up of hits, I doubt anyone in the crowd left the HMT disappointed.