Fleetwood Mac Returning To Australia in 2019 With Neil Finn

Fleetwood Mac are returning to Australia in August 2019. It’ll be the bands first time downunder without songwriter and former guitarist Lindsey Buckingham. The band will launch its local tour in Perth, before playing a string of shows on the east coast and across the Tasman in New Zealand.

Buckingham was fired from the rock band in 2018 after a disagreement over a US tour. Crowded House frontman Neil Finn and Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers guitarist Mike Campbell later joined the band. Both will join Mick Fleetwood, John McVie, Stevie Nicks and Christine McVie on the upcoming Aussie tour.

It seemed inevitable that, with Finn on board, the band would make Australia and New Zealand—where Mick Fleetwood and Finn first conjured the idea of Finn joining—a priority when it came to their next world tour.

"Fleetwood Mac has always been about an amazing collection of songs that are performed with a unique blend of talents," Fleetwood says. "We jammed with Mike and Neil and the chemistry really worked and let the band realise that this is the right combination to go forward with in Fleetwood Mac style. We know we have something new, yet it's got the unmistakable Mac sound."

The band is scheduled to play one show in Perth and Brisbane, followed by two shows at Sydney's Qudos Bank Arena and Melbourne's Rod Laver Arena. Shows will follow in Auckland and Dunedin. The dates will follow on the back of the band's tour of more than 50 cities in North America.

Buckingham last year described his departure from Fleetwood Mac as "not my doing or my choice". The guitarist first joined the band in 1974 with then-girlfriend Stevie Nicks.

"I think what you would say is that there were factions within the band that had lost their perspective," he said at a political fundraiser. "What that did was to harm – and this is the only thing I'm really sad about, the rest of it becomes an opportunity – it harmed the 43-year legacy that we had worked so hard to build."

Fleetwood Mac are one of the biggest rock bands of all time, performing now for more than 50 years. The Rock and Roll Hall of Famers have sold more than 100 million records since forming as a blues band in the late 60s. Their 1977 album Rumours is widely considered to be one of the best of all time.

Tickets for Fleetwood Mac's upcoming shows can be bought from The Ticket Merchant website.

Fleetwood Mac 2019 Australian Tour Dates:

Perth: RAC Arena, Friday August 9
Brisbane: Brisbane Entertainment Centre, Tuesday August 20
Melbourne: Rod Laver Arena, Monday September 2 and Wednesday September 4
Auckland: Spark Arena, Monday September 16 and Thursday September 19
Dunedin: Forsyth Barr Stadium, Saturday September 21