How it all started
Sometime in 2000, Mike and Anne were in the car on the way to a gig (she was driving, as usual), and Mike mused aloud, "You know... given that I learned a lot of my lead guitar off 'Fleetwood Mac Live', you can play keyboards and sing, Annie can do Stevie, and Tim looks like Mick and can play drums. We ought to form a Fleetwood Mac tribute band."
She considered it for about three minutes in silence. Then grinned at him, and said, "We could call it Fleetfoot Mike."
Once they'd got home, and Mike (who hadn't been entirely serious) had stopped giggling at the name, he rang Annie and Tim, and tossed it out as a kind of 'what the hell' idea: and they loved it. Discussions then turned to a bassist. Tim knew someone in Gravesend, and Mike... Mike used to play in a Christian rock band called "This Way Up" with Mal, who had that solid, dependable approach to bass that you could hang the Titanic off, rather like John McVie. So he picked up the phone.
It turned out that Mal, unbeknownst to Mike, was a serious McVie fan, and had seen him with the Mac at about their second-ever gig, as well as with John Mayall and heaven knows who else. Not surprisingly, he jumped at the chance.
We ran through a few things at the first rehearsal, some working better than others, until, right at the end, someone, probably Mike, said "How about we try 'Sisters Of The Moon'"? So, as usual, Mike printed off charts, while Anne found the Mirage video and stuck it on to play. We all watched the original live performance through for a recap, then trooped back into the rehearsal room and picked up our instruments.
It faltered, a bit, at the first attempt. We restarted after the first verse, and somewhere there things just locked: we roared through the playout at the end, Annie wailing like Stevie Nicks had possessed her, on top of a rock-solid rhythm foundation of bass, drums and organ, with a screaming guitar over the top. It all came to a crescendo and stopped.
There was silence for a couple of seconds, as we all exchanged looks and got our breath back. And then a small voice, Annie's, said, "Cor. We don't suck."
Adding another member
Rika was involved with the band from almost the beginning, as a combination of roadie and lighting engineer. After a while, we started to notice that a lot of later Mac live stuff has extra backing vocalists, and Lindsey's guitar roadie plays guitar on several songs (such as "Second Hand News" and "Go Your Own Way"), and... well... There was Rika. She plays guitar and sings. Bit of a no-brainer, really.
It's hard to imagine how we ever managed without her.