I did warn you there would be more of this stuff. Nearly a quarter of the way through this century we have easy access to the cream of Fleetwood Mac’s concert crop from three-quarters of the way through the previous century — and at this point that almost seems by design.
Mick Fleetwood was keen to put out a live set not long after ‘Rumours’ arose but the rest of the band shot the idea down. Didn’t stop them from recording an estimated 400 shows between ’75 and ’80 during increasingly in-demand tours that built this particular Mac’s reputation almost as much as their multiplatinum monoliths.
So when they finished globetrotting behind Tusk, the taller namesake once again suggested issuing a wax memento of their on-stage adventures. This time the others (mostly) said yes straight away.
Quickly cobbled togther was this double-wide package from a few weeks before ’81 arrived, the first official live LP in the FM discography. Also likely the first time many fans took notice of the Buckingham-Nicks rocker ‘Don’t Let Me Down Again’ (the sole track here dating to ’75) or heard Lindsey’s licks plucking Peter Green’s ‘Oh Well.’
There’s minimal attempt to replicate actual shows; like the cover implies, this is hodgepodge as blurry snapshot, life on the road in 18 songs, with a Brian Wilson obscurity as finale — although, if rumours be true, they likely laid down the luscious harmonies of ‘The Farmer’s Daughter’ during Tusk sessions, then tacked on crowd noise later.
Christine’s playing throughout is expectedly superb, at times more noticeably assertive than ever, especially in the rollicking honky-tonk she stirs up during a soundcheck take of ‘Don’t Stop.’ But for the purpose of retracing the arc of Ms. McVie’s artistry, we can skip to Side 3.
I daresay you’re better off starting there.
Beyond boasting an excellent ‘Over My Head,’ the aforementioned B-N bit (a really kickin’ rendition too) plus a better-controlled, more compelling ‘Rhiannon’ than the one on that recent Rumours Live release, Side 3’s patch of performances is bookended by two then-new tunes. Both were ostensibly cut live at Santa Monica for friends and road crew days after the ’79-’80 tour ended at the Hollywood Bowl. No reason to doubt they recorded them in single takes; plenty of reason to think they tinkered with them later.
I’ll touch on Christine’s first, not just for obvious reasons but because Stevie Nicks’s song is the more meaningful and enduring of the two. ‘One More Night’ (no relation to Phil Collins’s or anyone else’s similarly titled tune) is another overlooked McVie gem that subtly captures the conflicted emotions of women grappling with rocky relationships at the dawn of the ‘80s, newly empowered but no less heartsick — and, in the case of Christine’s character, threatening affairs of her own to keep her man at home. It’s as good as ‘Over & Over,’ better than ‘Never Forget,’ and I’m glad they didn’t leave it on the shelf.
But Stevie’s ‘Fireflies’ is one of those little marvels, like ‘The Chain’ (though nowhere near as potently as ’The Chain’) that in little more than four minutes perfectly sums up what drove this Fleetwood Mac variant for so many decades. Teems with lyrics that crack open their core, like these: ‘No one ever leaves / Everyone stays close / ’Til the fire fades.’
Everyone fights, after all — ‘and the fire flies.’