Two decades after releasing "Rumors" - one of the biggest-selling albums in history - Fleetwood Mac is back together again. The most famous incarnation of the band, that is - Lindsey Buckingham, Mick Fleetwood, Christine McVie, John McVie and Stevie Nicks.
And there are those who are still surprised that it's happening."If you'd asked me a year ago whether I'd be here today doing this, I would have said, `No. Absolutely not,' " Buckingham recently told TV critics.
Nonetheless, this band - whose personal soap opera sometimes drowned out the music - is about to set out on a 40-date tour and a new album ("The Dance") with tracks culled from live performances in May.
And MTV presents "Fleetwood Mac: The Dance," taped at those May performances in Burbank, tonight at 8 p.m.
The reunion actually grew out of a solo project Buckingham was working on. He asked Mick Fleetwood to play the drums, and other members of the band also joined on.
"And suddenly, there we were in the middle of the studio as a group and realized that this was feeling very good," Buckingham said. "And that was a place I never thought I'd be at again."
Indeed, it's a big turnaround for a band that broke up amidst rancor and enmity.
"The whole tone of the show was one of a cycle coming around again and a sense that these five people are having a great time enjoying each other onstage," Buckingham said.
That, of course, was not always the case. Christine and John McVie divorced at the height of the band's fame, and Buckingham and Nicks broke off their longstanding relationship. As various members of the band bailed out, they fired rancorous missiles at each other in the press.
"I think I actually needed to leave the band in order to maybe resolve some issues with Stevie," Buckingham said. "Because when you break up with someone, you don't normally work with them for the next 10 years every day."
And band members acknowledge that the back-story of their lives has become part of the band's image.
"I don't think there's any way you can take the drama out of this band," Nicks said. "When you have two couples, whether or not they're still together or in a band, it's dramatic. It's tense. It'll always be that way, unlike a group of guys."
She said she was recently talking with Don Henley about the similarities between his band, the Eagles, and Fleetwood Mac.
"And I said, `Well, you were never in love with Glenn Frey or Joe Walsh. . . . It isn't really similar when you come right down to it, because you are a group of guys and we are two couples and an extra guy."
Buckingham, who insisted "There is no baggage now at all," agreed.
"I would say the appeal of the band is almost more that these five people are kind of an unlikely mix, to say the least," he said. "Even more, given the fact that we went in as two couples and broke up and still played that hand out.
"I don't know. To me, the appeal is something that almost transcends the music. It's more about the chemistry between these five people and the whole being greater than the sum of the parts in a way."
Which is not to say that there isn't plenty of great music in tonight's 90-minute special. The concert features both new arrangements of old hits - songs like "Say You Love Me" and "The Chain" - as well as new songs from Buckingham ("Bleed Love Her") and Christine McVie ("Temporary One").
And listen to the lyrics of "Temporary One" - they're quite appropriate to the occasion:
"The river goes on and on.
"The sea that divides us is a temporary one.
"And the bridge will bring us back together."
And it's not big surprise when the USC marching band troops out for "Tusk" - although this is a whole different generation of Trojans from when the song was first recorded.)
It's been a long time since I saw Fleetwood Mac in concert - just over 19 years. We're all a lot older - but the group has lost none of its magic.
"The Dance" is as entertaining a concert as you'll find on television. Fleetwood Mac fans won't want to miss it.
And if you're not a fan yet, you might just be one by the time it's over.