Tango in the Night tour.
 

How cool would it have been if Lindsey did the Tango tour. Those Tango tour videos on YouTube are kind of lame. They would have been better if they were filmed like the Mirage tour videos. The Tango tour videos are mostly not even actually filmed live performances, they’re filmed and staged rehearsals with shots of audiences mixed in. I would love to see how cool the Tango tour videos could have been if Lindsey did the tour and they actually filmed a live show like the did for the Mirage tour videos. I’d especially love to see live Hold Me, Sara, and Gypsy from 1987. It would also be cool to see which of Lindsey’s Tango songs they would have played.

But… I will say that I do enjoy Rick and Billy’s guitar work, I really enjoy their sound.

I dont think anyone would disagree with wanting Lindsey to do that tour. However, I respect his decision and he needed a break especially what he went through with the Tango sessions. He clearly had PTSD from working with a few. He didn't need to do the album and he did. It would have been a fantastic show with him. However I bet the Tango concert release would have been just as tacky and bad. That was a goofy trend in the late 80s to make videos of "live" performances. The Mirage show had real camera men on stage, holding big cameras on their shoulders. By the time 1987 came along, they had those roaming cameras. It was not really the band but the glam of the late 80s that made that horrible release.
If Lindsey did the tour, I would imagine he would have quit the band afterwards. What would have happened? There would be no BTM. They would have been a dead band until maybe the Dance. But who knows. Maybe they would have had auditions and come up with different guitarists and had a different kind of album than BTM.
Was I upset with Lindsey for quitting. OMG yes! But I truly think he needed that escape hatch.

If they’d swapped out “Over My Head” with “Isn’t It Midnight,” the 2014 tour would have effectively been the proper TITN tour.

That said, I’m glad it worked out the way it did. Rick revisiting the early blues was worth it.

yes, that's sort of true. We finally got to hear Seven Wonders and Little Lies with Lindsey on that tour. Its really sad that Isn't It Midnight was performed on 3 Mac tours but never with Lindsey. That should be a crime.

I suspect there’s a reason Lindsey wouldn’t play Isn’t It Midnight live.

My hunch is that is not the case. Chris was already playing both her singles from Tango on that tour. She was back and they only had so many songs. Chris picked all her hits which makes sense since her absence was so long and they had not been performed for so long. Its her song so she could have picked it. On the Dance she did Everywhere but not Little Lies. In 2014 she did both.
If Lindsey had not been fired, I bet he would have performed it instead of Neil and Mike on the 2018 tour.

It would have been incredible to do it as the second song welcoming back Chris in 2014. However much of the crowd would not know it so they stuck to one of her bigger hits uptempo song YMLF. But could you imagine it as her welcome back song? I would have needed a diaper.

Honey, at your age, you're going to anyway.

Kind of strange to think that "Big Love" has never been played live in its album arrangement, either by Lindsey or the band. It was a big hit! They definitely would have played it if Lindsey had toured, interesting to think how it might have sounded.

The Tango in the Night live video is such a strange and dated artifact. Those extra "closeups" of Stevie especially are weird as hell. I'm glad it exists because it's the only professionally filmed concert (at least that I know of) with that particular lineup.

Do you think it's because he co-wrote Isn't It Midnight?

That's an interesting take. Since Stevie did Storms live for the first time on Unleashed, would that make it a proper tour of Tusk?

Yes, if he’d toured I’m sure they would have played the full band version of Big Love.
But…..eek….. they may have played Family Man.
That said, it might have been interesting…..he may have played FM as his acoustic ‘solo’ song.

No, I just think he either has a hard time playing it live or more likely he doesn’t like the song. But no way is it a coincidence that FM didn’t ever play it live when he was in FM. Especially knowing they played it again live right after he was fired.

I don’t think anybody else in FM had an attachment to Big Love… is anyone else in FM definitely on the song? I don’t see Stevie or Christine singing backup live, since they didn’t on the recorded version, so I definitely think it would have been played solo by Lindsey like it was on the Dance.

But I’d always thought a full band version of the song live would have sounded great. Imagine Dragons did a good job performing Big Love, judging from the clip I saw on YouTube.

You really think it would be Lindsey's choice and not Christine's since its her song? I think the vocalists decide for themselves which song of theirs to do live.
During the Dance, the band did not even do Little Lies which was their biggest hit off Tango. Chris focused on the 20th anniversary of Rumours to dig out Oh Daddy and a Lindsey return. When Chris came back in 2013, the band was already playing 4 songs from Tango in that set. Chris was back and dusted off all her hits that had not been performed in well over a decade. Little Lies with Lindsey was put in. I dont see the exclusion of Isn't It Midnight anything else except Chris showcasing all her hits with the band again. The 2018 tour had no Lindsey. Both Chris and Stevie needed to pick up the slack because Lindsey was gone. There was room for both of them to explore and dig deeper.
We know Chris likes the song but I dont see the exclusion of it during OWTS meaning Lindsey does not like it. I bet he's damn proud of it. But its not his song to tell Chris which of her songs she wants to do. You think because Little Lies was not performed in 1997 means Lindsey does not like it? Same point.

Fleetwood Mac played Isn’t It Midnight on their 1987 and 1990 tours. When Lindsey returned with Christine and Stevie for the Dance, they didn’t play it in 1996 or when Christine returned in 2014-2015. Nor did Buck/Vie perform it during their tour, a bit surprising since it’s one of the few McVie/Buckingham co-writes. After Lindsey left again, FM brought the song back. You don’t have to be a scientist to figure out Lindsey didn’t want to perform it.

Yes, I do believe Lindsey could say he didn’t want to perform one of Christine’s songs, and she would be ok with that. Christine seemed like the kind of person who was easy to work with, and if Lindsey said he didn’t want to play one of her songs, then yes, I believe she would have been fine with that.