I have mixed feelings about this whole period. I liked most of Time. Christine delivered, on a song-by-song basis, better material than on BTM, and she did make an effort to appear on Bekka and Billy's (very subtly in his case, but I can hear her here and there in the mix). Mason is just out of place, like the previous Dave, but Mick's These Strange Times captures the confusion of the era perfectly. So taken in its entirety, the album makes a passable case for a change of direction after yet another personnel change, with a heavyweight holdover from the previous regime taking on the burdern of carrying the torch (think Danny Kirwan on Future Games).
I would have to concede that the newcomers do not deliver material that stands comparison with Chris and Bob Welch's contributions to FG, so the comparison falls down a little. I do think Billy's songs are much better than his BTM songs, however.
The main problem is the fact that there was a studio entity and a touring Mac. I don't blame Chris at all for not touring. They never played in the UK during this period, so I never saw them live, but I wonder if I would have been able to summon up the emotional belief to buy into their performance. Out of loyalty and curiosity I would probably have gone, but the performances I've seen on youtube lack a certain chemistry and I'm kind of glad I never had the chance. With Chris it would have made some sort of sense and they might have got away with it, but Billy, as the sole front-line survivor from the BTM front line didn't or couldn't make enough of a stamp musically to justify them carrying on. Although Mick and John were there, there wasn't enough of the musical blood-line carrying on to to hook in the punters.
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