Rate These I'm So Afraids!
 

My love for this song knows no bounds. It's my favorite Lindsey song by far. WIth that being said, it's hard to pick just one version from throughout the years that is my favorite. Hopefully all the diehards have heard all of these versions and can voice their opinions.

For me, the big gaping hole in my FM knowledge is the Mirage tour, I've never heard it. But I'll put it on here for the lucky ones who have.

Me, personally, I had a hard time between the TUSK and SYW versions....I really love the power and energy of the recent versions (can't wait to see it June 10th in the Burgh), but I also love the way LB leaves the verses fairly sparse in the live 80 version, letting Mick and John set the stage for his freakout solo....I'll go with live 80 after much internal debate. :thumbsup:

And yours?

AMEN! It IS hard to choose, but if I were forced at gunpoint, I would pick the White Album tour. I love how enthusiastic Lindsey is when he sings it, lots of adlibbing groans, oohs, and ahhs, and to top it off those defiant high notes he slips in right before the end. LOVE it.

I couldn't have said it better. For me it is also tight between tusk-era and SYW-tour. Tusk era because of his singing, SYW-era because of the fact that he just let it derange into noise madness. So I voted for that one because I just totally "left the building" during the shows I saw (especially the European shows). I quote another ledgie: "it's not a song, it's an experience". And quoting the madman himself: "we took it to the stage and it turned into a pitbull".

Amen.

gerald

I voted for the Tusk era version. It's just perfection IMO :nod: . BTW, rollison , I think the Mirage tour version sounds a lot like the Tusk tour version. Linds' voice is just a little deeper. If anyone knows if he changed anything on that tour, let me know too (I'd have to go and listen to it a million times)!

The Dance for me!
 

Definitely the Dance version for me. He was just tearing that guitar UP! I love the introduction and the final solo. IN fact, that ending solo was one of the first guitar solos I made an effort to "learn all the way through."

Ack!!
 

The DANCE version
 

My fave one. The LIVE album is cool but very long. Though I love it, I find the Dance version the more mature and well developed. Ok, Lindsey voice is not as good as in the 80s, but is the guitar the starring in this song.

Ooh!!
 

Haha...I was about to say "well, the one I would vote for is not actually on the list of options," but it's now been noted.:)
From the first time I heard it after downloading it from Neil's site (almost a year ago now I guess) it became my favourite version of the song. The strange thing is that he performed that night without the rest of Fleetwood Mac, and without his own band, and yet in my opinion the meaning and emotions which constitute the song came across better on that night than on any other.
The atmosphere has been captured so well on that recording (made by our good friend David if my memory serves me correctly) and I love the crowd's reaction to Lindsey's presence. Knowing the events that happened in the year after this concert in terms of Fleetwood Mac, and that bitter part of the band's history, makes that speech he delivers before NGBA cast (in retropsect) an even darker shadow on this performace of ISA.

Given that my favourite LB era is without a shadow of a doubt the Go Insane/Tango In The Night years, it's unsurprising that this is my favourite version of the song. As Christy said, this is possibly the only hint we'll ever have of what the Tango In The Night tour should have sounded like.

The manic clawing of the strings at the very end of the solo is a hint of what we'd see on a nightly basis 17 years later, and for those f***ing a**holes over at "amiannoying.com" who decided to label LB's voice as "weak", I suggest they take a listen to this literally faultless (and amazing) vocal performance.

Ppfftt!!
 

I love all these versions. I was tempted to vote for the white album./Rumours tour version. But I went for the SYW version just because he blew my mind seeing that live, but I will say that Mick equally steals the song as much as Lindsey does. I think all live versions bury the album version although i do love hearing the haunting album versiona s well.

Tango In the Night Live
 

But I'm still waiting for Tango In the Night Live. I think he could replace So Afraid with this song some day. At least for few shows.

Hopefully not one I attend, lol.

Although the Dance album has an incredible ISA, I refuse to vote for it because for the Dance and SYW, that song has become painfully overrehearsed. A song's long, dramatic guitar solo can't sound the same every night its played for seven years straight and still be a strong composition. But I've never heard two boots from 75-78 where this song sounds the same at the end. My personal favorite is the Nashville, TN one from the Rumours tour. I think someone is posting this whole show online right now, actually; this live version is DEFFINITELY worth a listen. The end solo is brief, so it hits you hard. Also, Lindsey and Mick start with a cool jam that doesn't sound rehearsed like it does now. Plus I think his younger voice sounded better on this song; more emotion in it.

Don't get me wrong though... Lindsey could butcher this song, and it would still be a masterpiece.

Adam R.

I'm listening to the Nashville show right now...and it does have it's own traits which are really good. I love how the guitar kind of *punches* in for the first chorus...also right before the solo after the elongated "ohhhh" he throws in a "yes" which is just awesome and soulful.

I agree with you about The Dance....After I heard it 5 times or so, it did sound a little bland and overproduced...but I think it's regained something in the SYW tour...a little more energy, a little more spunk (as shown by his willingness to let the audience strum a few bars), and a totally gung ho Mick....maybe he'll have it cookin even more on this next leg upcoming...

If you listen to The Earls Court show from the SYW tour, you can hear that I'm So Afraid sounds nothing like it did on The Dance.

Oh!!
 

My favorites generally are from the August 1980 F. Mac shows, but I heard a stupendous one in Irvine on the Mirage tour, too, which earned Lindsey a standing ovation that was so well-timed & so in unison that it seemed to have been rehearsed.

Yeah, that night's performance as Christy said, the 29th (I don't recall it being quite so amazing on the 30th although it was still a great version) was the best one I have heard on this tour so far .The Dance version, which I voted for only because I feel it's the definitive version of that song now. (I actually prefer some of the Tusk tour versions but I also think some from that tour are too messy and loose to give that tour my vote).

I don't think the SYW tour version is too similar to The Dance version.. Sure, it still has the same reference points and riffs in some places but it's much less structured in it's approach and the results are versions that average about ten minutes long rather than about six minutes on The Dance tour..

:wavey:

Love the Mirage Live version to pieces!!!!! As this was the time I got into the band. I remember watching the Concert special and this song was a favorite.

In second place is the OOTC version that I heard front row center and had Mr. Buckingham hovering above me. So Cool~~~~

Third Place the version on the 1980 Live album is so rockin', it kicks A$$ !

I always end up choosing tracks from The Dance, which I suppose it's because of sentimental reasons (as someone told me here). What a kick-ass version that was. To me it's 100,000 times better than the album version... which was good in the first place. :)


Song of the moment - Silver Springs

Wow.
 

Cool, people like the Dance version like I do. I just could listen to that over and over. Great version! :thumbsup:

Hey Christy

He played this club/bar in upstate Connecticut, the stage was the size of two King size matresses put together and during I'm So Afraid and Go Your Own Way, he came to onto a outcrop best described as a steamer trunk and he literally hovered above the front row! I remember this drunk chick trying push everyone over to grab at him with her long red nails and the security guy had to tell her to cut the crap but he allowed me and another girl to feel Lindsey up a little!!

"I'm So Afraid" is always incredible, but I went with the 'white album'/'rumours' era tour versions.

There was just something so... uninhibited about the song in those early days. Excellent stuff. :nod:

Now, This guy is sitting on his knees begging:

Seteca, Wondergirl, I've never heard this version. The way you describe it sounds so friggin' awesome, that there's just one thing that I can do in all humbleness.

pleasepleaseplease?

[email protected]


gerald :wavey:

The White Album Version is the best!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Ah, gotta love Stevie. :p

And yeah, I really want to hear the version Seteca is talking about. Currently my favourite version is the Tusk Chicago show. Some of his greatest string bends.

LOL!!! Gotta admit, that's a good one!

:laugh: :lol: :laugh: :lol: :laugh:

:lol: :lol: :lol:
That was a good one!

:laugh: :laugh: :laugh:

.
.
do you mean white album tour version or white album studio version.

Wow!!!!!
 

Yw Christy! I like that version a lot too... or any from the Tusk tour. That's definitely my favorite period for ISA (for just about everything, really :lol: ).

Honorable mention to OOTC versions... wish we had more boots from this tour.

I just listened to this now...and.....um.....yea....wtf..!!..:shocked:...lol!!

I'm surprised nobody called the Environmental Protection Agency that night to report missing a large quantity of chemicals......!! ;)

Great version.....my favourite guitar part is that awesome feedback note he gets in the middle of the first solo...and the vocals of the 2nd chorus are...d a r k....

Dark is right!
 

Now this is the proof that there is nothing else in this world like Lindsey Buckingham. I adored him in a healthy way, but after hearing the cassette-demo of deep dense from BuckinghamNicks.net and now this I'm so afraid-version (Apart from the incredible version seteca sent me :angel: ) all in one week, that's just too much to handle. I am contemplating the start of a church.


PS: and what about John during the intro! :eek: