Behind The Mask Turns 35 Today (April 9)
 

Hard to believe that only two other Fleetwood Mac studio albums came following its release.

Funny, it only feels like 70.

Three, but what’s in a name?

This is an album I liked since it was released, and I had always thought so. But on second thoughts, I have always listened all most all songs when I play a Mac album. However of the BTM album, I only play 6 or 7 songs at the most.

Actually, I think that what I liked the most was the idea that the band was surviving Lindsey’s departure. It wasn’t the same anyway.

Behind the Mask- RIP

Anybody have any thoughts as to why no Behind The Mask songs were played on the 2018-2019 Tour but a song from Time was (not for the whole tour but for most of the North American dates)?

But meanwhile nonhits from the classic lineup albums such as Isn't It Midnight and Storms were played (again not for the whole tour)?

Love Is Dangerous, In The Back of My Mind, Stand On The Rock, Save Me, and Freedom seemed like no-brainers to me.

If the fact that most songs were co-written with Billy or Rick or any other, and the band just wanted to sing more "pure" Christine and Stevie songs (in quotes because the band has always included McVie-Quintela hits) plus Finn/Campbell songs in 2018, that would only leave us with Save Me, Skies, Behind the Mask (where Lindsey played acoustic guitar) and Affairs of the Heart. That's sad cause I'd have love to see Do You Know live.

Most likely the decision to include All Over Again was exclusively Christine's so she has her reasons for not include a BTM song, but if I had to choose one of the BTM mentioned songs, I'd go for the title track. Maybe many fans would choose Save Me, but I've never liked that song so much. I put it in the same bag as Temporary One.

Were there reasons for excluding Billy and Rick songs? Finnancial, legal, etc.? I don't know.

It would have been great to hear BTM song on the BuckVie tour, with Lindsey on acoustic guitar.

I believe it was Stevie who chose All Over Again for the tour. A better choice would have been As Long As You Follow. Mick and Stevie said before that tour that Stevie listened to many of their albums again, and she deliberately chose some deep cuts to include. Christine always seemed to me that she was easy to please when it came to selecting songs for tours.

Love is Dangerous, Stand on the Rock, and Save Me were great when FM played them in 1990. But since Save Me just made the top 30, I’m sure they considered it a flop as a single, and they even dropped that song near the end of their tour.

As you said, Freedom would have been an obvious choice for the 2018 tour, since Stevie co-wrote it with Mike Campbell.

BTM is one of the only albums in my life that I can remember the exact day I bought the album. Earth Day 1990. I remember it because I can recall sitting in the mall parking lot and the radio mentioning Earth Day. First time that I realized there was something called Earth Day. Was so excited to get this cassette tape.

This was already a bit of an unfamiliar Fleetwood Mac tour, so I’m sure they wouldn’t have wanted to make it even more unfamiliar by including BTM songs. Audience would have been…wtf?
That they included a Time song….I guess it just fit.
Personally I’d have gone with Why. But hey ho

All over again was an inspired choice to end the show, if as I suspect, Christine was feeling less confident about exposing herself on the keyboards with Songbird- there was a certain frailty about her then that wasn't evident on the previous tour. Stevie apparently liked the song too and it felt great that this simple, lovely song got a live airing at last. With Christine's passing its performance and lyrics take on an added piquancy.

I think the reasons why no BTM songs were played were they were nearly all absolute duds, the title track would have been tricky to pull off live, Christine thought the album was terrible and I'd be surprised if Stevie could even remember being on it. Other than that... just as well we were spared the spectacle of Neil Finn covering Stand on the Rock.

You’re totally right about All Over Again and Stevie. Stevie said she discovered the song while she was listening to The Fleetwood Mac Channel on SiriusXM in May 2018.
I would have loved the show to have closed with When It Comes To Love or As Long As You Follow!

I didn't know that. It shows how distant I was from the Present Band and that tour. Actually to this day I've never seen any video of that tour.

Definitely!

I am sorry. I don't believe that for a minute. She's trying to create a myth of some fandom like she discovered the song. She could never name any song off Time. In 2018 they were rehearsing for the tour. They were playing tons of songs that never made it to the set and digging deep. No doubt Chris thought this was a good encore since she could not really play Songbird anymore.

There’s more evidence than not that Stevie initiated that.

First, just look at how she opened up her own solo setlist in 2017. She brought in some little or never played songs and it was her biggest solo tour up to that point. Changing the formula suddenly wasn’t nearly as intimidating.

Then, there was the quote from Mick to Rolling Stone in 2017:

“Yeah. I was in Italy recently and met Stevie out there. Actually, she was in Capri and I was close to there. She said to me, “Let’s sit down and really listen to some stuff that sort of almost got forgotten.” So I know she’s already thinking she wants to do some things we haven’t done in years.”

Finally, the Don’t Stop comp was being planned, so opening up the setlist to include material outside of the Rumours band would have seemed obvious, especially in light of her aforementioned 2017 tour.

Now, whether or not “All Over Again” was specifically her idea or something that came up in committee during the tour planning is another matter. As in, “If we’re opening up the setlist like this, there’s a nice song from Time we could try that would be a nice way to end the show…” Still, it seems pretty obvious that Stevie was the one who put that in motion.

As for not being able to play “Songbird”, she was able to belt out a few electric piano solos, so she still had chops. The bigger limitation I see is her singing. “All Over Again”, especially when done as a duet, was a lot easier to sing. Neil playing piano was more so Christine and Stevie could stand together.

Given Stevie's selection of her own songs to perform for the 2018-2019 Tour, it's clear she doesn't think highly of her songs on Behind The Mask. She sang her songs from FM, Rumours, Tusk (Storms not Sara), and Mirage.

................

Christine herself was happy enough to say that Stevie had suggested All over again. Somehow, I don't think Christine would have been brow-beaten into faking that. I'm prepared to give Stevie a little credit, here.

"This is a song that Stevie reminded me of quite a long time ago. It's a sweet song, it's not very famous but it's very pretty." Christine explains.

"We love it" says Stevie.

"We love it" echoes Christine.

"I found it" claims Stevie (well she couldn't have written anything like it, I suppose).

"And you found it.." Christine deadpans, pointing her thumb at the old witch.

How I miss Christine being in the world...


https://youtu.be/wuM1ZXUJUB8?si=678OsXd5qVkqsmsr&t=15

Las Vegas November 30 2018

That being said, Christine’s last public performance of “Songbird” was in June, 2017.

https://youtu.be/6VAZQ_oBHEo

I think she and Lindsey were trying to do more LBCM material on their tour and Stevie wanted to do more obscure stuff in 2018.

I gave a deep sigh when I finished watching it a few seconds ago.

The Queen of FM is gone, but not forgotten.

Hi hi! Behind The Mask is one of my fav albums at the moment, as I started to listen more deeply in the lockdown, also with Time.
What can I say! I'm only one year older than it, and when I listen to some songs I find myself travelling in time to 1990, with strange hairdos and stuff...

It's not a bad album (except for The Second Time and that unnecessary long intro of In The Back Of My Mind)!! It has good highlights, of course we can discuss which ones!

I'm still waiting for a deluxe edition, but as you can see, no matter how many years the album is turning, there are still "other" priorities...How many songs can you name to make a great and valid three disc edition??

Happy Birthday, Behind The Mask!

The long intro of "In the Back of My Mind" marks one of the few uses of Mick's drum vest on a Fleetwood Mac studio recording. He may have also used it on "These Strange Times", but I cannot confirm.

Most of the songs on Behind the Mask were written by Billy and Christine, who at the time were the strongest songwriters of the band. The songwriting is fine on the album and the production is serviceable but a little bland at times, with the exception of the title track and the intro to "In the Back of My Mind". The album could have benefited from gutsier production, perhaps from someone like Patrick Leonard, who produced "Love Shines". I'm curious if to what extent the album would have been enhanced with the presence of Lindsey on the rest of the album. Perhaps it would be held in slightly higher regard, particularly if it meant that some of his Out of the Cradle songs were carried over to Behind the Mask and developed by the rest of Fleetwood Mac. Songs like "This is the Time" and "Say We Would Meet Again" would have benefited from some live drums from Mick.

You left out that Stevie contributed some of the worst songs of her career. She was saved with Tango because she contributed Sandy's song which became a single. None of her songs on BTM could have ever been a single off the album. They were all B side sort of stuff. Second Time is horrible but I think Affairs of the Heart is one of the worst songs the Mac ever recorded. It's dreadful. Freedom is ok but it needed some punch ups and should have been the second song on the album. Its buried on the second side.
I've mentioned this before but I never upgraded my 1990 cassette to CD for BTM. It was one of the only Mac albums from that era that I never got the CD. Several months ago I got one on Ebay really cheap. I played it for a few weeks front to back. Its not a bad album at all and I like most of it. But its so annoying how Stevie is layered in so many songs. In 1990 I never caught on but Stevie was not much in the studio for BTM and her voice is layered in. She's not on the chorus of Save Me until the far end where she is edited in. She gets layered in during one chorus of When The Sun Goes Down and a moan in the title track. There are a few other places. I suppose the band thought they were clever layering her in on songs and at the same time making Stevie feel relevant. This is why Skies The Limit is a rare song for the album. She is singing live with the rest of the band. The only song 4 singers authentically singing and harmonizing together. There should have been more of that.
Stevie's songs were so bad that she did not even care to promote them on the tour and chose her classic Mac stuff instead. Besides the lead single Save Me (which was dropped late in the tour) Chris never promoted anything from the album either. The album was almost used exclusively to allow the new members to have songs of their own to sing at a Mac concert (Stand on The Rock and In The Back of My Mind).

I just found this article. The review of the background has no new info, so I payed attention in the songs review, and I must say I completely agreed with what it says about Do You Know and WTSGT.

https://www.albumoftheyear.org/user/...hind-the-mask/

So, Skies The Limit really kicks of the trend of starting out as a pretty epic song. But yeah, the chorus just had to be that simple. Fleetwood Mac can make the simple things good, but not this time apparently. Love Is Dangerous was kind of simple and casual. In The Back of My Mind was very intriguing, with the first half of the song being pretty epic before the second half kind of changing up the mood completely. Wasn't a fan of that. Do You Know is one of my favourites, quite nice track. Save Me was also nice, with the instrumental being especially engaging. Affairs Of The Heart was built as a very similar track, so that gave me zero surprises. When The Sun Goes Down has some blues and country vibes and it turned out to be pretty fun. The title track actually proved to be the first real weak song of the album. Stand On The Rock probably was the last track which was among the very likeable ones. The remaining ones just exist.

You forgot the most important last line: A step down but still a good album.

Stevie will agree with you!:xoxo:

I hope not. She's dumber than a bag of hammers(and thank you for proving my point). :D

I just read this article. It includes the well known episode of Lindsey departure, but then it focuses on BTM.

https://americansongwriter.com/remem...rture-in-1990/

Behind The Mask, the album Fleetwood Mac recorded as a sextet, arrived in April 1990. The band spoke about how the album was more of a collaborative process than the ones in their recent past. Without Buckingham’s meticulous perfectionism dominating the recording proceedings, things went smoothly.

That said, Vito and Burnette, while doing a solid job throughout the record, couldn’t provide the jolt of energy and eccentricity that Buckingham delivered almost naturally. Behind The Mask also felt a tad genteel, lacking the explosive chemistry that characterized the band’s most popular era.

It wasn’t long before another Fleetwood Mac era would begin. Vito and Nicks were next out the door before the band would record again. And sadly, although they would often tour in later years, the classic five-person lineup of Rumours and all its wonderful follow-up albums would never again make another LP together.

I'm not sure how "collaborative" was that process. Yes, Lindsey may have tended to dominate the production and many of the details in the songs, but I don't know how good Bill and Rick's skills were in that regard, so how they participated. Besides, Stevie didn't participate much more in that collaboration than in Tango, or so I read.

I agree, Stevie’s songs were awful, with the exception of Love is Dangerous, which was a co-write with Rick Vito. I suspect he wrote most of that song. And I totally agree about Skies the Limit, it always makes me feel good when I hear all four voices on a song.

As I recall, FM performed Save Me, Love is Dangerous, Stand on the Rock, and In the Back of My Mind live, and even dropped Save Me near the end of the tour. Frankly, I was surprised they didn’t perform Skies, as it was the second single. When It Comes to Love would have been catchy live., too.

Disappointment would become their middle name.
It seriously was a disappointing year. Working so hard and releasing a new album with the new lineup. They started the tour in Australia because they had to cancel the Tango Australian leg because Stevie was sick. The band promised to come there first the next tour and they kept their promise. They did their quick tour of Australia, a few gigs in Japan and by the time the tour touched down in western Canada and Washington State, Save Me was already dropping out of the top 40 after only reaching 32? They just got to the states and the album was tanking. It must have really stung hard. Combine that with Chris's dad dying, Stevie threatening to sue Mick over his book, it was a bad year. Having said that, it was one of the best concerts I've seen in my life.

Love Is Dangerous wasn’t performed at many shows. It was a treat to get it at one of those shows. For some reason, I thought Save Me was played at every show and In The Back of My Mind was dropped because they opened with Say You Love Me instead!

Freedom would have been a great song for the band to perform live. Would have been nice if they had done it.

I saw them I think the day after Thanksgiving in 1990 in Cincinnati, which was near the end of their tour, and they dropped Save Me for Say You Love Me, and played Love is Dangerous. They started with ITBOMM, which segued into the Chain. I was really disappointed they had dropped Save Me, but it’s nice to see videos on YouTube where they did perform it.

I saw them 4 days before you in Pittsburgh. Save Me was dropped but the band put in Say You Love Me instead. I originally had mid July tickets but the tour was postponed about 2 weeks before the show. Stevie dedicated Landslide to a woman that worked with her father at Greyhound that was in the audience. Do you remember who she dedicated Landslide to in Cincy?
Attendance in Pittsburgh was not great. It was a good crowd but the entire upper arena balcony was empty. A recession was brewing, the Mac had a flop album, it was the holidays and no one really was interested in seeing them I guess. But I heard attendance was better in other cities.

Ok thanks for letting me know. The setlist.fm website is really messed up because they say Save Me was played at every BTM Tour concert!!!

I read setlist.fm is not a 100% reliable source, but I usually check it, too. In that webpage, the average Mirage tour setlist includes 4 Mirage songs, and the average Tusk tour setlist includes 6 Tusk songs. What is the right number of songs to include on a new album when you already have several albums out? There is no rule, that's right. But in the 70s and 80s when the tours were to support album sales, at least 4 or 5 songs were ok. And BTM belongs to that era.

Nowadays the concerts are the main product, not the albums, because the business model has changed, and for an old band is more difficult to sell records. Not surprise they turn to the well-known hits.

Web archives of the 1990 tour are all messed up. Many of the U.S. dates were cancelled and made up later yet many sites don't show that. There were variations in the set list too. Very early in the tour the band opened with Say You Love Me like they did on the 1987 tour. That was quickly scrapped and Say You Love Me was dropped completely from the set only to reappear mid-set in the "Farewell" part of the tour post cancellation. But it only appeared off and on variating Save Me and Say You Love Me during the last month or so.

I wonder if the 1995 tour included BTM songs. Billy played in that tour so they could have done it. I just checked one 1995 show where they played with Reo S. and Pat Benatar. If the setlist is accurate, it's weird they included Lennon's Imagine and no Billy BTM song.

The Chain
You Make Loving Fun
Dreams
Oh Well
All Along the Watchtower
The Bigger the Love
Blow by Blow
We Just Disagree
Gold Dust Woman
Only You Know and I Know
World Turning
Dear Mr. Fantasy
Say You Love Me
Don't Stop
Go Your Own Way
Tear It Up
Imagine