Dallas Morning News (04/05/1993), Precision Pop

Dallas Morning News, April 5, 1993

PRECISION POP
Lindsey Buckingham lives up to image as driven tunesmith

By Matt Weitz

FORT WORTH -- It's an image older than Poe or Coleridge: the artist as a brooding, melancholy presence, completely possessed by his work. Lindsey Buckingham has always been pop music's version of this dark genius. Through a career that started in Southern California folk- pop and passed through pop ubiquity with Fleetwood Mac, Mr. Buckingham has always been a bedroom dreamer on the order of Brian Wilson, seeking through his music some sense of a world in which he does not belong.

No one can listen to his quirky, heartbreakingly precise solo albums without realizing that for Mr. Buckingham, music is what matters. It's a sense of devotion that promises good work, and there was a palpable sense of expectation in the air Sunday night at Caravan of Dreams.

Microphones bristled against a wall of drums and percussion. A sense of song as intricate as Mr. Buckingham's demands a lot of attention and he had brought along nine musicians to help him realize his vision.

Ultimately, though, it's the artist we focus on, and Mr. Buckingham started the show out by himself, establishing two of his music's dominant themes with Go Insane and Big Love. Years of stadium-churning tend to obscure talent, and it's easy to forget what an accomplished guitarist Mr. Buckingham is, an ability he made quite clear with the propulsive flamenco rush of his finger picking. Go Insane in particular benefited from the spare, elegant arrangement.

The combination of five guitarists and three percussionists gave the songs a big, chainlike center, the muscle that has to be there in order to support the impeccable vocal work. Mr. Buckingham's songs have a surprising momentum and gravity and he delivers them with authority, even managing to wrest tunes such as The Chain from the FM graveyard Fleetwood Mac had consigned them to. Numbers such as Tusk moved with a reflex and kick that had been forgotten or never seen, building to a hammer-like conclusion.

Throughout the show, Mr. Buckingham played the perhaps-not-all-together-normal artist, grimacing and jerking behind his guitar as he sang, animatedly waving a hand or moving around in spastic, mechanical bursts.

From the beautiful setting-sun finality of You Do or You Don't to the siege-engine dirge of I'm So Afraid, Mr. Buckingham delivered well-crafted pop songs whose polish and precision did his watchmaker's obsessiveness proud.

Thanks to Les for posting this to The Ledge.

Date: 1993-04-05         Number of views: 950

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