Fleetwood Mac’s ‘Everywhere’ singer Christine McVie had memories of Miami. ‘Bloody hot’

Christine McVie, the songbird in Fleetwood Mac, was super hot in South Florida.

No, it’s not just that the songwriter, vocalist and keyboardist was popular for writing and singing 10 of the band’s 18 Top 40 hit singles. Among these are “Everywhere” from the band’s 1987 “Tango in the Night” album that is currently resurgent and a Top 10 Apple Music single thanks to its use in a Chevrolet electric car commercial.

No, literally, McVie was hot.

On Aug. 6, 1980, while performing at Hollywood Sportatorium, a long-gone sweat pit in western Broward County, McVie was in her usual space on stage behind her keyboards during Fleetwood Mac’s Tusk Tour performing her “Rumours” hit, “You Make Loving Fun.”

With bandmates Stevie Nicks, Lindsey Buckingham, Mick Fleetwood and her ex-husband John McVie flanking her, McVie announced amid the song’s sweet harmonies that she was about to pass out.

McVie remembered that frightening incident for years.

“It was so bloody hot,” McVie would later tell a Miami Herald music writer in 1997 about getting overheated on stage in Florida when her band’s classic lineup first reunited after they had split 10 years earlier.

Fleetwood Mac peformed its Tusk Tour at the Hollywood Sportatorium on Aug. 6, 1980. The lineup featured Christine McVie, Stevie Nicks, Lindsey Buckingham, John McVie and Mick Fleetwood. Christine recalled almost passing out from the heat on the stage at the old venue. Howard Cohen/hcohen@miamiherald.com
Fleetwood Mac peformed its Tusk Tour at the Hollywood Sportatorium on Aug. 6, 1980. The lineup featured Christine McVie, Stevie Nicks, Lindsey Buckingham, John McVie and Mick Fleetwood. Christine recalled almost passing out from the heat on the stage at the old venue. Howard Cohen/hcohen@miamiherald.com

McVie should have been used to steamy situations in South Florida.

In 1976, Fleetwood Mac recorded portions of its landmark “Rumours” album at Criteria Studios in North Miami.

The album’s co-producer and engineer Ken Caillat recalled an amusing scenario during the sessions. McVie and Nicks were headed into the studio after taking brief vacations. Caillat told one of the studios engineers “to stash the Playboys so that they wouldn’t cause an issue when the women returned,” he wrote in his 2012 memoir, “Making Rumours.”

But it wasn’t always amusing. The Miami-Dade studio was the scene of another overheated moment with the ever-combustible Fleetwood Mac.

“Miami already felt like one nonstop party,” Caillat recalled in his book as he recounted the recording of “You Make Loving Fun” at Criteria.

McVie had to be the cool voice of reason after Buckingham blew up at Caillat during the recording of his guitar parts for her song.

McVie, who sang the supportive “Don’t Stop” to support her soon-to-be ex-husband John during the “Rumours” sessions, was the calm member compared to the more blistering Buckingham-Nicks couple on their aural warfare “Go Your Own Way” and “Silver Springs” from the “Rumours” sessions. McVie was the first to halt a heated argument in the studio between Buckingham and Caillat, the producer wrote in his memoir.

READ MORE: This studio is the birthplace of the Miami sound.

McVie died Wednesday at 79 after a short illness, the band posted on its social media site, The Associated Press reported.

Over the years McVie has performed on South Florida stages with Fleetwood Mac’s various incarnations on tours in 1977 at the old Miami Stadium in Allapattah, 1980 and 1987 at the Sportatorium, 1990 at the old pink Miami Arena, 1997 at the then-named Coral Sky Amphitheater near West Palm Beach, and 2014 and 2018 in Sunrise and in Miami. In 2017, McVie and Buckingham performed as a duo at Hard Rock Live near Hollywood on a tour to promote their joint album.

Christine McVie and Lindsey Buckingham perform “Tusk” at Hard Rock Live near Hollywood on Nov. 11, 2017. The pair were on a break from Fleetwood Mac to promote their “Lindsey Buckingham Christine McVie” album. HOWARD COHEN/hcohen@miamiherald.com
Christine McVie and Lindsey Buckingham perform “Tusk” at Hard Rock Live near Hollywood on Nov. 11, 2017. The pair were on a break from Fleetwood Mac to promote their “Lindsey Buckingham Christine McVie” album. HOWARD COHEN/hcohen@miamiherald.com

Before the 1997 reunion tour that brought Fleetwood Mac to Coral Sky, the band spoke to the Miami Herald. Here’s an excerpt from a conversation with Christine McVie and Lindsey Buckingham on getting along again after all those “Rumours.”

Fleetwood Mac put rumors behind them

Fleetwood Mac band members, from left, Stevie Nicks, John McVie, Christine McVie, Lindsey Buckingham and Mick Fleetwood appear at the January 2018 MusiCares Person of the Year tribute honoring Fleetwood Mac in New York. This would be Buckingham’s final performance with Fleetwood Mac. Evan Agostini/AP
Fleetwood Mac band members, from left, Stevie Nicks, John McVie, Christine McVie, Lindsey Buckingham and Mick Fleetwood appear at the January 2018 MusiCares Person of the Year tribute honoring Fleetwood Mac in New York. This would be Buckingham’s final performance with Fleetwood Mac. Evan Agostini/AP

Published Aug. 15, 1997

As “Rumours” celebrates its 20th anniversary, a reunited Fleetwood Mac thinks about tomorrow with an MTV special repeating Saturday and Sunday, a major U.S. tour (tentatively playing Coral Sky Nov. 8), and a new CD, “The Dance,” in stores Tuesday. Christine McVie and Lindsey Buckingham settle some rumors:

Where is this going to lead?

McVie: “I don’t know [but] everyone is getting on famously. It’s too good to be true; something’s going to give [laughs]! We’ll get through the U.S. tour and there’s talk of a European tour next year. It seems we’ve all grown up. That has been my only prerequisite. It would have to be sunny, not the hell of 20 years ago. We’re a lot more loose, and we all have a sense of humor; that never went away.”

Buckingham: “If you asked me a year ago [to do this] I would have said ‘Absolutely not.’ I was working on a solo album with Mick and had John in to do some bass and then Christine for vocals and we looked at each other and thought, ‘Ooh, deja vu.’ When I got into the [group] situation and started rehearsing, I realized there was a lot more going on . . . and was able to appreciate the chemistry of the band without the baggage.”

McVie: “I was saying that to Stevie the other day — we ought to be advocates for world peace. If we could go through what we did 20 years ago and come through that and do what we’re doing now, anyone can!”

Where does Fleetwood Mac fit in today’s music world?

Buckingham: “Obviously, in the late ‘70s Fleetwood Mac was considered a big machine and you had people, not that much younger than us, rejecting [us]. Now there’s this cyclical look with people like Billy Corgan and Courtney Love saying Fleetwood Mac isn’t really the enemy anymore. There’s an ability to look with renewed clarity at how well that stuff holds up.”

Are the feelings still raw when performing songs from Rumours ?

McVie: “I don’t think of [ex-husband] John anymore when I sing ‘Don’t Stop;’ it’s a joyous kind of anthem.”

Buckingham: “This is one of the things that is very nice about the energy between Stevie and myself. We can acknowledge that there is still a lot of love there . . . we can look each other in the eye and say, ‘Geez, [we] came from the Bay Area and made something work and here we are again. What a trip.’ That’s something we couldn’t do before I left.”

Stevie Nicks: Recording ‘Tango’ in my ex-boyfriend’s bedroom was ‘extremely strange’

Christine McVie, keyboardist and vocalist for Fleetwood Mac, performs at the Spectrum Center in Charlotte, North Carolina, on Feb. 24, 2019. McVie died Wednesday at age 79. Jeff Siner/TNS
Christine McVie, keyboardist and vocalist for Fleetwood Mac, performs at the Spectrum Center in Charlotte, North Carolina, on Feb. 24, 2019. McVie died Wednesday at age 79. Jeff Siner/TNS

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