By MICHELLE HERBISON
AUDIENCE commendations and re-bookings at nearly every venue are fast proving the success of a double-tribute show to Fleetwood Mac and Eurythmics.
Musician Annie Mac and her band initially questioned their decision to pair the two bands’ music in one evening of performance.
“But we found, surprisingly, a lot of people tell us they came to see one or the other of the shows but didn’t realise how much they loved the other band,” Mac said.
Rhiannon, the Australia Fleetwood Mac show and Oz Eurythmics will visit North Geelong’s Sphinx Hotel on 14 December for an evening of ’80s flashbacks and dance-floor frivolity.
The five-piece band features two female vocalists backed up by guitar, bass and drums.
“Everyone in the band sings, so we’ve got four-part harmonies. We just have fun and love the music so we try to convey that to the audiences,” Mac explained.
The band swapped costumes between playing the Fleetwood Mac material and paying tribute to Eurythmics but they were too busy pumping out the hits to actively impersonate either artist.
“The costumes, lighting and that are there to enhance the ambience and help people reconnect with that good feeling that the music evokes,” Mac said.
“We try to be in character in a sense, trying to express the music in a way we feel is relevant to people connecting with it.”
The band “really rocked it up” by adapting from both Eurythmics’ electronic recordings and live versions of their songs, which tended to feature a full band, Mac explained.
They found that people from all generations related to Fleetwood Mac’s music.
“Whenever you play a Fleetwood Mac song people just get up and love it. Don’t Stop is such a feel-good song and it’s got that real sing-along vibe,” Mac said.
The challenge was deciding which songs to leave out of the two one-hour long shows.
Since its inception last year, the Melbourne-based group enjoyed success in various parts of the country, including a “fabulous” trip to the Northern Territory and Arnhem Land, Mac said.
The Sphinx performance will be the group’s first trip to Geelong with this particular act.
