In the moment between walking on stage and kicking the night off with the blues stomp of The Chain, Neil Finn took a second to shake off his nerves. As the newest member of Fleetwood Mac he'd been playing a run of successful away games but last night was the first in front of the home crowd. A quick waggle of his hands and he was off.
In a band of vocalists Finn's is the first voice you hear and the song's roaring chorus could almost be a challenge to fans still harbouring ill will about the recent departure of long-term - some would say critical - member Lindsey Buckingham.
"And if, you don't love me now," he sang as the chorus crashed around him, "You will never love me again," and there was a lot of truth in those two simple lines. Buckingham's departure may have required two world-class musicians to cover, Finn and guitarist Mike Campbell from Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, but this is a new era for a band that have had more "new eras" than most.
At first the crowd was typically Auckland. Sitting through the apocalypse of that opening song and barely nodding their heads to keyboardist Christine McVie's mega-hit Little Lies which immediately followed. It felt like people were waiting for an invitation to cut loose and jump up out of their seats.
Taking matters in hand Stevie Nicks, clad in her traditional witchy black, addressed the crowd right after. "Let's get this party started," she said as the band floated into her sublime hit Dreams and the crowd finally woke up.
