THE SMALL FACES Never Went Away

“The Small Faces are BACK!” screamed Steve Marriott. “Albatross!” screamed back a wag in the crowd.

I understood his point. A couple of weeks before, Fleetwood Mac had been back too. A fraught gig, I read in the paper later. Birmingham was Christine McVie’s home town; she and John had got married there. But the nerves weren’t just gossip column blues. The memories that jangled were of the old love affair with the audience. Once upon a time Fleetwood Mac had the most devoted fans in Britain, played the bluest whites, had two witty guitar heroes. But that relationship finished long ago and now Fleetwood Mac were flaunting their affair with a new audience, with the hip easy-listeners of modern day America. In Britain we felt like dowdy rejects as the hype built up—this was a fuckin’ California pop group!