Welcome to Beginner’s Guitar Studio!

June 9, 2015  

Each summer, for the past few summers, the Riverside Resort has turned June, July and August into their tribute band season. With the exception of Lorrie Morgan appearing June 19-21, the tribute bands fill the summer calendar of Don’s Celebrity Theater with bands playing the music of Journey, Tom Petty, Lynyrd Skynyrd, the Doobie Brothers, and more (see “Coming Up” on page 42 for complete listing). The tribute season gets ushered in this week with Fleetwood Nicks on Wed-Sun, June 10-14, playing the music of Fleetwood Mac.  The band’s focus is on capturing the true essence of Fleetwood Mac and Stevie Nicks in their prime, staying true to the original studio recordings that made them two of the most iconic acts in rock history. Fleetwood Nicks format is that of a powerful rock concert, performing hits from Rumours through Fleetwood Mac’s famous reunion Dance Tour live album.  “The Chain,” “Go Your Own Way,” “Gold Dust Woman,” “Dreams,” “Hold Me,” and “Sara,” are just a handful of theclassics you’ll hear, as well as concert favorites such as Lindsey Buckingham’s signature encore “I’m So Afraid” and Nicks’ haunting “Landslide.” A Fleetwood Mac tribute would be pointless without the signature vocal sound of Nicks. Julie Torchin fills that spot as one of the top Stevie Nicks impersonators in the nation.  Powerful solo hits as recreated by Torchin include “Edge of Seventeen,” “Talk to Me” and “Stand Back,” as well as duets “Leather and Lace” and “Stop Draggin My Heart Around”. In addition to Torchin, the current line up of Fleetwood Nicks is Brad Torchin (lead guitar/vocals of Lindsey Buckingham); Valerie James (lead vocals of Christine McVie); Danny Buss (bass); Todd Rogers (keys & vocals); Dave Davis (drums); and Aaron Olson (rhythm guitar & percussion). We caught up with Julie Torchin in a phone interview last week to get more insight into the group. Here’s her take on… A little background on how this group came to be. Torchin: It was back in Chicago when the mostpopular cover band ARRA (former lead singer Ronnie Platt is now the lead singer of Kansas), got me up to sing “Stop Draggin’ My Heart Around” for a crowd of thousands. After hearing so many positive responses, I decided to start my own band. That was about 15 years ago. At that time we were both a Heart (“Heart Alive“) and Fleetwood Mac (“Fleetwood Nicks”) tribute. We were very successful for six years, not only playing the main venues but opening for many celebrated artists at festivals such as Cheap Trick, Grand Funk, Paul Rogers, 3-Dog Night, Joan Jett, Jim Peterik & Kevin Chalfant. Two of us, Danny Buss our bassist and myself, moved out west to Las Vegas so we could play music full time. We put the band together, but it wasn’t until a few generations of the band when we found the right players to make it one of the most recognized in the business—so much so that Kevin Chalfant (Journey, The Storm, Alan Parsons Live Project) asked both “Fleetwood Nicks” and “Heart Alive” to performhis home town festival in Illinois. We were also one of only 12 bands chosen to perform “Tribute Palooza” for over 40,000 on New Year’s Eve at Fremont Street Experience in Las Vegas. Recently, we were honored to recreate the Rumours Album at the Casablanca showroom. It was definitely one of the highlights of our musical career. We have since decided to split the show into two separate tributes. This was because both Fleetwood Mac and Heart have so many huge hits, that we could now expand and cover everything people wanted to hear. In each show, we have three hours of hits in our catalog. Getting the distinct lead vocals down and that distinct Fleetwood look… Torchin: It was a long time ago, back when I was living in Scottsdale, Arizona, with my sister. Stevie (Nicks) was also living in Scottsdale at the time. It was when MTV was the coolest thing to watch. I was home alone during the day and my sister had this huge foyer with these great acoustics. I remember they would play “Gypsy” alot, and when it came on I would run to the foyer and sing along. Pretty soon my sister was dragging me to karaoke and show me off. Valerie James was hired for our Heart tribute as our lead vocalist singing as Ann Wilson. That is a completely different voice than Christine McVie. She had already worked so hard at dialing in the Ann Wilson voice I had no idea she could pull off Christine so well but she did with flying colors. Brad Torchin was only supposed to be in our Heart tribute. But once I heard him sing a Lindsey (Buckingham) song I knew he was the one. He had double the work learning all of Lindsey’s songs and his amazing guitar style. As for the style of clothing—it is a dream come true because everything that Stevie has brought to fashion (as well as the Wilson sisters) is definitely the coolest stuff you can wear. My closet is a glorious wonderland of hippie/gypsy/goth/renaissance. What was the biggest challenge in putting this group together? Torchin: I think the biggestchallenge is that everyone is extremely talented—which also makes them very popular as musicians for work outside of what we do. Therefore it’s sometimes a challenge to get everyone to agree on a date. Todd was the keyboardist for the most popular cover band in Vegas, “Yellow Brick Road,” for years, and he continues to perform on occasion with many national artists. Aaron our drummer has been playing for years in the popular “The Fab“tribute; Dave Davis has acoustic and original projects; Valerie has been a touring original artist; and Brad and I have collaborated on an original project “Surrounding Sara,” as well as performing acoustically around Vegas. I have an original Christian Rock project called Love Survive. What do you think sets you guys apart from other tribute shows out there? Torchin: First, we all love the music and this shows in our performance—the audience picks up on this. Everyone in the band has a mission to give their audience a show they will always treasure and togive them what they came for. There are many tributes out there today that get their bookings on their fancy promo packages. But when they are live, they sound nothing like the original artist they are paying tribute to. They dance around melodies to avoid the notes they can’t hit and they phrase things differently. They lower the keys and don’t have the right guitar or keyboard sounds. It’s almost as if the agents or venues don’t know what the original artists sound like before they book these mediocre tributes. We are very honest when we say we “rock it like the record.”  We stay true to the original studio recording and do not hold back on anything. I’m not saying we don’t add our own creativity here and there—such as with Fleetwood Mac’s “Rhiannon”—it’s just a cooler extended version that was on their double live album. We also expand on it at the end, where I wrote a part for Valerie—so it’s more like a powerful duet at the end. I think even Fleetwood Mac would be impressed. Showhighlights… Torchin: I think our live version of “Rhiannon” and “Edge of Seventeen” are most powerful. Brad’s performance of Lindsey’s incredible acoustic version of “Big Love” off Fleetwood Mac’s The Dancealbum is one that gets audiences on their feet—along with “Don’t Stop,” Tusk” and “Stand Back.” Then when we let the boys take over the stage to do the old Fleetwood Mac tune “Oh Well,” it’s always fun for Fleetwood Mac fans of that era. People always call out for “Landslide”—it seems to be the song a Fleetwood Mac fan cannot live without—so it better be in your set. Sometimes there are fans out there that know we do both Fleetwood Mac and Heart. So they might yell out “Barracuda!” and well, we will do it. What is your particular favorite song to perform? Torchin: My favorite song to perform is definitely Stevie Nicks “Nightbird” off her Wild Heart album. I also love performing “Talk to Me” because it’s a song that gets me dancing around more than any others. What is the crowdfavorite? Torchin: I think it has to be “Landslide.” You do Stevie Nicks solo album songs in addition to Fleetwood Mac? Torchin: Yes we perform a good handful of her solo hits such as “Edge of Seventeen,” “Talk to Me,” “If Anyone Falls,” “Stand Back,” “Stop Draggin’ My Heart Around,” “Leather and Lace,” “Nightbird.”  It all depends on how long our show is how many of these we can squeeze in. Do you do the hits with Kenny Loggins, “Sweet Love” and “Whenever I Call You Friend?” Torchin: I would love to do “Whenever I Call You Friend”—it’s always been one of my favorite songs. Is there a Kenny Loggins out there for me?   FLEETWOOD NICKS: The Music of Fleetwood Mac Riverside Resort, Don’s Celebrity Theatre Wednesday-Sunday, June 10-14. 8 p.m. (See Showtimes for tickets)