[THD]

The concert was presented at Imperial College, part of the University of London by the students Union , in the heart of London’s great Victorian Museum area- South Kensington I’d bought the tickets days in advance from the student’s Union ,and when I went it there and said I wanted ten tickets(a lot of friends were going and handed over the money the grateful guy said “For that much you can have the whole Fleetwood Mac ! (an offer I should have accepted instantly !)
, This was a sit down concert., for once ! There was a theatre with a stage but not with cinema type seating -rather there were stackable chairs laid out in the hall . I think now that this is where they screened the films The Plankl and the Wild Horses of the Carmargue prior to the performance rather than what I said before (ie at the Lyceum gig )because my feeling is now that I was sitting in a chair whilst watching these films and that couldn’t have been the case (for me anyway , at the Lyceum or Roundhouse )
So this is Fleetwood Mac after Peter had just left, but he was in the front row of the audience,!(talk about even more pressure! ) So the band consisted of Jeremy Spencer and Danny , Mick and Christine. they certainly did Station man, a song that I liked very much and they played better than most bands around at the time, but if you’d had the privilege of seeing them at their peak with Peter then it wasn’t enough. That most of that special magic had gone! Sound levels were more audience friendly- not the post concert ear buzzing levels of the Roundhouse concerts(-but perhaps loudness is necessary for hard blues rock ) This wasn’t a hard blues rock concert I don’t remember Jeremy doing any Elmore James stuff I suppose we- the audience,- the fans from that era wanted it but I expect the band wisely wanted to leave it behind I suppose they did most of the stuff off Kiln House but I cannot say with certainty .
I think it was at this one that McVie warned the audience about plainclothes officers from the Chelsea drugs squad mingling with the crowd and to” watch out”! (this has reminded me that, at some concert, Peter said some thing about Marihuana, but pronouncing it as Mary dew wahnah, in his deliberately comical way , probably at the Lyceum gig ,( but obviously not at this concert though, because he was sitting in the front row!) Jeremy was, I think, wearing plimsolls and bopping around a lot to the music, but my vague recollection is that it was Christine who was announcing the songs and acting as “front man “ Earlier, on a sort of mezzanine level other bands were performing and one northern outfit(foolishly )
attempted Stop Messin’ Round the best they could, but it was lacklustre , and made you realise why the original Fleetwood Mac were a cut above the rest.!