A rumor going around the local music scene has people talking about Fleetwood Mac recently playing a surprise gig at Bourbon Street in downtown Sandusky.
While this is entirely incorrect, there is a kernel of truth, as is the case with most rumors.
The group people have been talking about is Rumours, a Fleetwood Mac cover band that came together in March of this year in the wake of the big Mac's 1997 reunion and blockbuster U.S. tour.
The local band is named after the 1977 album that has become one of the best-selling records in rock 'n' roll history.
The Castalia-based band not only sounds like Fleetwood Mac, members also do their best to look like the principal members of the group's most famous line-up, which solidified for 1975's self-titled record and split after 1987's "Tango in the Night."
Rumours includes Jill Dahnke as Stevie Nicks on vocals, Lance Horwedel as Lindsey Buckingham on guitar and vocals, Faith Hiser as Christine McVie on vocals, Brian Runkle as Mick Fleetwood on drums, Mike Papazian as John McVie on bass, keyboardist Matt Corkins and guitarist Brian Papazian.
Although the band now does only tunes from the 1975-87 era - with a couple of Nicks' solo tracks tossed in and cuts from 1997's live reunion CD, "The Dance" - members are working up versions of songs by past Fleetwood Mac leaders, most notably Bob Welch's "Hypnotized" and Peter Green's "Oh, Well."
The current set list features 30 songs, including fan favorites like Christine McVie's "Say You Love Me" and "Over my Head," Nicks' "Gold Dust Woman" and "Silver Springs" and Buckingham's "Monday Morning."
Rumours has appeared at the Huron River Festival and Mutt and Jeff's in Lorain and is slated to play Bourbon Street again Saturday. The band is still honing its sound and hopes to expand its playing area to Cleveland in 1999.
"We still want to polish," Hiser said over coffee before a recent rehearsal in the basement of her home.
The Rumours seed was germinated during Thursday jam nights at the former Fearless Fred's in Huron, where Horwedel and Dahnke used to do acoustic Mac tunes between electric sets. Rumours sprouted quickly after Corkins and Brian Patazian heard them playing.
"There was a guy just whaling on his guitar ... and it was Lance," Corkins said. "It just fell right together."
Horwedel, the band's de facto leader, says he's modeling the group's plan after Huron-based Beatles cover band Backbeat. He's hoping to one day establish a state-wide following without consuming the other band members' lives.
He said the group's weekly rehearsals are fun, "like a PTA meeting." During a plain-clothed rehearsal between basement walls bedecked with photos of Jimi Hendrix and the Three Stooges, Rumours prepares for its next gig by running through its set list and taking a couple of requests.
The three-part harmonies on Buckingham's "Second Hand News" were more solid than what the real Mac-oy used to offer in the 1970s.
Horwedel provided a solid rhythm anchor while Brian Papazian ably filled in with Buckingham-esque noodling.
"The Chain," Rumours' perennial opener, took the realism one step farther with harmonies that - if you closed your eyes - could easily convince you that the real thing was playing in front of you without having to drop up to 40 bucks for admission.
As Horwedel said prior to playing: "All it takes is the vocal end of it."
All Events are Rain or Shine!
