Fleetwood Mac – Rumours Live
Here we are in 2024, and Fleetwood Mac’s “Rumours” remains one of the top-selling albums of all time, still sitting high up on the weekly indie store charts. Any store owner will tell you they sell copies of Rumours day in and day out. And while I’ve had a copy since 1977 when it came out, I did pick up a clean reissue a few years back just to have a less worn copy. And then, because I had loved “The Alternate Fleetwood Mac” so much, I also bought “The Alternate Rumours” back in 2020. Despite how ubiquitous some of these songs are, I truly never get tired of them, and these get quite a bit of play.
But, as I wrote before, I never got to see Fleetwood Mac live. As amazing as I’ve heard their shows are, I don’t do arenas and I don’t do tickets that cost a car payment, so I’ve never gotten to experience that other than by watching YouTube clips.
Along came this “Rumours Live” release in 2023, and I was just blown away at how great these live performances are. I came away liking this even better than Rumours for a while – just killer renderings of these now extremely familiar songs. These were recorded in California in the summer of 1977, when Fleetwood Mac was still a band, not a legend, Rumours was their new album (which commanded the Billboard #1 spot for 29 weeks of 1977), and these rocking performances capture a freshness that is missing from later, more reverent readings of these songs. It is largely a mix of “Fleetwood Mac” and “Rumours,” with only one song from the Peter Green days (“Oh Well”), so every song on here is highly familiar, but every one has something different from the studio version. A great performance, a great record, and a great way to re-experience these songs.
We saw them live in ’97 at the Pepsibocker Arena . . . and it was kind of dreadful. They had, like, 11 people on-stage, so lots of supplemental instrumental bloat, and Stevie’s voice was a wreck. It was wonderful to see Lindsey play, and the show highlights were almost all Christine’s. She retired soon thereafter. Then we were in Las Vegas in 2014 and they were in town (sans Christine) and we went on a whim . . . and it was wonderful!! Smaller support band, Stevie in good voice, really good energy in a long and generous set. We saw them a third time in Des Moines after Christine returned (also wonderful), saw the Buckingham-McVie tour in Chicago (wonderful), and have seen Lindsey solo twice (once acoustic solo, once with his band). (Both wonderful). I’ll have to check this album out . . . if only to be hear how they did these songs with just the five of them. I’ve never really understood the tendency for groups to add so much supplemental support sounds to their on-stage presentations, where more is so often less.