Rolling Stone #261: Fleetwood Mac

Fleetwood Mac headed for Moscow

Los Angeles – Fleetwood Mac is working out final plans for an unprecedented series of three concerts in Moscow this summer. All proceeds from the event and a resulting television special will be turned over to UNESCO.

The Russian visit was the idea of Fleetwood Mac legal adviser Michael Shapiro. Shapiro first presented it to Mick Fleetwood and John McVie last June. “They gave me their blessing to check out all the possibilities,” said Shapiro. “And I found the Russian Embassy in Washington and the U.S. State Department both very receptive.”

The next month, government representatives from both countries met the group, saw its Washington D.C. concert and were impressed. Alexi Ustin, deputy of the Soviet concert organization, was then shown a videotape of Fleetwood Mac when he visited Washington in November. Ustin was also impressed. “That was the clincher,” said Shapiro. “The only question he had was whether John’s cutoffs were his artistic stage attire [the videotape was from an outdoor summer show in Santa Barbara]. Otherwise, he told us several times he liked Stevie very much.”

Shapiro traveled to Moscow early this year to meet again with Ustin. Accompanied by John Courage, tour manager for Fleetwood Mac, and John Upston, a Warner Bros. consultant formerly of the State Department, they returned with an official document confirming the concerts for July 8th, 9th and 10th at the acoustically elegant 3000-seat Russia Concert Hall.

Original plans called for a live satellite broadcast. “It would have to happen in the middle of the morning,” said Shapiro. Instead, there will be a television special to document the occasion. The TV show will include concert footage and films of the group experiencing Russian culture. Networks are bidding for broadcast rights.

“It wouldn’t take much to disrupt all these plans,” Shapiro admitted. “Everything, of course, depends on world peace, but I’d be shocked if it didn’t happen at this point. The time is right for a group to do this. Fleetwood Mac, being English and American, two women and three men, is internationally revered. They have to take a lot out. They want to put some back. That’s what it all comes down to.”

Courtesy of Rolling Stone #261 – Cameron Crowe – March 23, 1978