The Mac Heard 'Round the World

This is a cool 2-CD set of live performances by Fleetwood Mac! It's made up of recordings from several shows on various stops on the amazingly huge "Tusk" tour of 1979-80.
This tour was rigorous, over 110 concerts spanning ten months and ranging from the United States to Japan to Australia, back to the States, then over to Germany, Holland and England, and wrapping up back in the US. The rigor is reflected in the voices of the three singers, Lindsey Buckingham, Christine McVie and Stevie Nicks, who all sound utterly exhausted.
The Mac was promoting their lineup's third album, "Tusk," so they had a good amount of material to present, and there are some new morsels, too.

Disc 1!

Opens with two songs from their self-titled album, "Monday Morning" and "Say You Love Me." These two are performed straight off the record it seems, very professional and well-practiced. The tunes are ingrained into the musicians, and somehow they still sound like they enjoy performing them. They are note-perfect.

We find a by-the-book rendition of "Dreams," recorded at a sound check. Nicks is sounding proud of her song, but also beaten-down by so much touring. Buckingham's background supporting vocals are carefully done, and this is what makes the song sound different from the "Rumours" edition- he's a fine-sounding part of it here.

"Sara" slides very shyly into being, politely introduced by Buckingham. But as expected, Stevie manages to lift it into a pretty absorbing spectacle. Lindsey has come up with a new, more interesting, but slightly intrusive, guitar line for the live performance of the song.

For the final three songs on the disc we'll need to cross over to the weird side.
"Not That Funny," one of Buckingham's freakish "Tusk" tracks, is drawn like obscene taffy into a gangly oddity. You may blink in befuddlement as he seems to lose himself in...something... and fly pretty much completely off the handle. It may have been wondrous live at the show, but listening to it, you wonder just what the heck is going on.
He then sobs and whispers his way through "Never Going Back Again." The crowd explodes into a mass of drooling, raving Mac-Worship at every turn, and Lindsey plays with them, pulling out applause at every shiver of his voice.

We finish this disc with "Landslide." This song's performance came at the end of a crushing month of touring Europe, and Nicks sounds like she's just about to keel over and die. She introduces and dedicates the song at nothing more than a whisper, and then floats through it like she won't remember it tomorrow.

Disc 2!

It begins with a brand new Stevie Nicks song called "Fireflies"... it's 100% rambling Stevie poetry. Then the serene Christine dives into "Over My Head" like she's nobody's angel. Lindsey backs it up with some great effervescent stringing.

The opus "Rhiannon" pushes eight minutes, Stevie tackling the high notes and kicking the sweet hell out of all the rest. Lindsey totally wails with a solo, and then Stevie starts screaming. She plows the song right into the ground.
She and Lindsey duet on "Don't Let Me Down Again," a song from their pre-Fleetwood Mac years, and then Christine innocently presents a song of hers called "One More Night."

We hear a disjointed "Go Your Own Way," and a version of "Don't Stop" that clunks to an end when Lindsey busts a guitar string.

The Best Parts!

Two tracks I feel are highlights on this set. They are examples of brilliant ensemble work from these people. Oddly enough they are the only two songs that weren't written by Buckingham, Nicks, or McVie.

On Disc 1 we get "Oh Well," and great olde-tyme Fleetwood Mac tune by Peter Green, torn up by the roots by Lindsey Buckingham, who blasts off guitar riffs like a mad uzi. Fleetwood bashes the drums mercilessly, and gives that cowbell a once-over. John McVie speeds along beside them with one long, thick, nasty bass line that totally rules the rhythm of this old blues tune. It's over quick but it is some of the greatest rock, in fact I even hear this on the radio it's so well done.

And finally, the last track on Disc 2 is a short song called "The Farmer's Daughter," written for Fleetwood Mac by none other than Brian Wilson. It is STUNNING. There's a drumbeat and a bass line, but the song is meant to be sung in a Wilsonesque harmony. And it is. It's a three-way harmony between the singers, Lindsey up high, Stevie low, and Christine carrying the middle, but the thing is, you can't tell who's really where because they mix so perfectly. It is like a freaking choir of ANGELS. And I'm not the only one who hears Lindsey plucking out "Don't Worry, Baby." *sigh*

All right! That's our double set of live Fleetwood Mac! My only subscript is, if you don't like Fleetwood Mac, you'll hate this, because it is not clean and smoothed-over, it's live and raunchy!