My Eagles trip was incredible.

But that’s gonna be a story for another time right now. Time to switch to Lindsey Buckingham fangirling here.

I say Lindsey Buckingham very specifically, instead of Fleetwood Mac. Because on my way back home from Eagles dreamland, I discovered my other favourite band did the unthinkable.

Fleetwood Mac fired Lindsey Buckingham.

Over, as far as anyone knows, a dispute regarding simultaneous solo and band tour dates, Fleetwood Mac dismissed their frontman and lead guitarist since 1975, and in doing so broke my heart and the hearts of many of my fellow fans. Lindsey is the reason I discovered Fleetwood Mac (albeit because I thought he was hot, but also because I quickly fell in love with his music) and my favourite band member. I love Stevie’s music, too, but I connect with Lindsey.

I’ve long been a fan of his solo career, for sure, but I found him through the Mac and I love him in the Mac. I love the Mac in general. Stevie and Christine and all of them individually and together. As much as I have complained about the price of their tickets, the questionable practise on the last tour of some security guy who would only choose pretty young flirty things to bring down front, and the band’s politics which always seem to revert to Stevie vs Lindsey after all this time…this is all part of the fandom. If there wasn’t drama with this band, always giving us something to talk about, I may not have found the amazing friends I have through this band. Back in the early 2000s we were all active in various message boards, and somehow forged lifelong true friendships discussing and debating this dysfunctional group of incredible musicians we all love.

Lindsey is moody, and I don’t claim to know him well. I’m sure he can be difficult to work with, because he is passionate and intense in a group of strong personalities. But his wife referred to him recently as “a great man who got a raw deal,” and that sums it up perfectly. Lindsey is a good man with a great heart, who has offered to help me get home when I said I was taking a Greyhound and hoping for the best, hung out on the street talking to my mom for 20 minutes, has spent tons of time with my friends and I chatting and signing things and taking pictures.

Like this one of him and I in Jacksonville, Florida in 2011.

I believe good people surround themselves with good people, and to that end, his longtime band mates have also been amazing to myself and my friends, with one of them literally offering me the shirt off his back once when my jacket was stolen at a concert in a February snowstorm.

And he certainly got a raw deal.

I’ve been fired before and it hurts like hell. Though he will land on his feet, and hopefully will still release solo music and tour solo again, nobody likes rejection. And again, he is passionate about his art and wears his heart on his sleeve, so I imagine this has to be a blow to him. It breaks my heart to think of him being hurt, even though I don’t know him. It breaks my heart to see my favourite band end this way.

The fandom is divided now, even worse than it usually is. People are coming up with wild theories, blaming everyone and tearing apart fellow fans with different viewpoints. My circle of friends remains intact, thankfully, with most of us falling on the same side of things or right down the middle, just wishing everything could be okay again. But it still hurts to see everyone else hurting.

Fleetwood Mac is heading out on the road later this year, replacing Lindsey with 2 musicians who I’m admittedly not very familiar with so I won’t go into any detail. It’s not their fault. I trained my own replacement at that job I was fired from, and I knew it; she was a nice girl, it wasn’t her fault. I don’t care whose fault this is, I don’t feel the need to cast blame because it’s not in my nature, and I barely care what really happened, honestly.

It doesn’t change anything for me.

Fleetwood Mac may have technically began without Lindsey, and it may technically end without him too. But the Fleetwood Mac I love is the one with Lindsey in it, and no other.

They can tour, but I won’t be there.

I’m Team Lindsey. Always.

#IStandWithLindsey