Does anyone have any bootlegs from 1988 Europe shows from Shake The Cage tour?
 

I really want to hear Sara from the Tango tour (Shake The Cage tour) from 1988. They played it at a bunch of their European shows in 1988.

Thank you!!

I’m sorry, I checked my Koblenz June 4, 1988, and I don’t see the audio for “Sara.”

Edit: But I did find a “When the Sun Goes Down” from rehearsals for 1990!

Sara was only performed in less than half of European dates. Birmingham, half of London shows and Scotland. I did not see it on the setlist on any other European date even those first several London shows.

Thats what makes it so rare and impossible to find Supposedly Stevie came out dressed all in red.

If you find it, you have won the game

What's her aversion to playing "Sara"? It's such a great song in concert. I've only heard it once (last SYW show), but the way it builds makes it a way better concert song than "Gypsy" by far. Plus, it was the bigger hit between the two. I hear "Sara" way more than "Gypsy" when I venture out into the world.

I agree, I’d rather hear Sara live than Gypsy. And I do believe Stevie also sang Sara live on her Soundstage Live CD as well. As for why FM doesn’t perform the song anymore, I recall a Q&A with Rick Vito years ago, I think here on the Ledge, where he said Sara was difficult to perform live, and someone followed up asking him if he meant hard for Stevie to sing because it was such an emotional song, and he clarified no, that it was hard to make it sound good live. So perhaps that was why they dropped Sara from their setlist midway into their 1987 tour, although from reviews I read at the time, the song was received well by the audience.

The song was never performed during the 1987 Tango tour. I saw the show very early in the tour and no Sara. The band did perform Sara the next year in Europe but only a few stops. Believe it or not but they did not even drop a song to perform Sara. Their standard set was 20 songs but for a few lucky Euro stops they got 21 songs and Sara.
Sara no doubt is not easy to perform live since its very intricate. But guess what? The Mac nailed it every time. I never bought that reason. I don't find it a coincidence that once the Don Henley article was released, Sara disappeared in the set for an entire decade except these few Euro stops. I was in shock in 1988 when I read Sara was performed in Europe. I was like...what gives? Is there not an article in the Greatest Hits package that talks about the band and mentions Stevie dressed in red performing Sara in Europe? Or that was from somewhere else. I just remember being in shock the band chose to perform it there instead of the states. But maybe they just wanted to try it out there and was not crazy the way it sounded.

Standard Tango setlist from the states performed in Europe - London stop
https://www.setlist.fm/setlist/fleet...-5bd39730.html

Sara added a few London shows, Birmingham, and Scotland
https://www.setlist.fm/setlist/fleet...-53d3974d.html

Sara was a setlist staple since 2004 SYW Tour. It only left the set in 2014 because she swapped it for Seven Wonders, but then brought it back for the end of the OWTS Tour.

As for why she didn't do it in 2018 and 2019, I think Sara live was such a Stevie and Lindsey act where they'd sing to each other ("I'd stay home at night..."), she'd sing "All I ever wanted..." at his mic and then they'd butterfly kiss at the end. Same for why she didn't do Silver Springs in 2018/2019 (which hadn't left the set since 2009 until the 2018 Tour), she wasn't going to turn her mic at Neil and sing "I'll follow you down."

The only reason she did Sara one time solo for Soundstage in 2007 was because the producer wanted it on film, since FM didn't do it for their 2003 Boston performances that he filmed.

I hear Gypsy way more than Sara on FM radio and Sirius. It could be that it's a faster and shorter song than Sara. Also, the music video tied to the song was colossal in the 80s.

I’ve listened to it before from a bootleg. I got it from a Buckingham Nicks tumblr, but sadly it has been deleted.

Sara has always sounded good live on every tour they have played it. I would even argue that sometimes it sounds better live than the album version. Sara is a beautifully crafted song. The album version is amazing and it’s equally amazing when performed live. Now songs like Gypsy, Hold Me, and Everywhere don’t translate as well live. They sound better with the added production on the album versions. (The Dance Everywhere is awesome though, but that was cleaned up a lot for the video).

Also, if I remember correctly, several years ago someone posted a lot of bootlegs on here from like every tour. I haven’t been able to find the post though.

In 1979, she said she loved singing it in concert — “the absolute delight of my night,” she called it.

Before too many years flew by, I guess she had decided that it didn‘t sound great in concert because the noise on the album track couldn’t be replicated.

Years after that, I guess she had decided that it sounded pretty good in concert, after all, so Fleetwood started playing it a little again.

With Stevie, you have to follow the bouncing ball.

Oy. Leave it to some weirdo fan to assume such a stupid thing. “Too emotional” to sing? How cringe to ask Rick Vito such a thing.

Actually, it’s easy to play onstage. You can’t replicate the studio track because that’s a swamp of dozens of little acoustic guitar twings and twang-doodles, so you just power through “Sara” chord changes however you want and it’s easy and repetitive and straightforward. The whole song only has two main sections, and they’re both easy for all the musicians to handle. But if you really want to do it right, you put the drummer on a minimal kit with brushes, turn down the input on the (acoustic) keys so that they blend in to the rhythm, and tell the guitarist to pick and not power-chord (Waddy, that means YOU).

Stevie is the gal who should be responsible for giving the song a slow build and climax, but she doesn’t have that dynamic range anymore unless she is singing to acoustic backing, like “Landslide.” So I blame Stevie for screwing it up. Thoughts?

But how do we know how much they really did that? It’s just that we see her do that on the St. Louis film — and then, what? assume that she did that the entire tour? It’s like everyone saying she did the Charleston on “Angel” every night just because you see her do it in St. Louis, or that she had her hair in a Gibson bun for “Sara” all the time. Sometimes she did and sometimes she didn’t, I bet. We can’t just watch one film and then say, oh, that was the formula for ten months of touring.

We could check the Landover/Largo 1979 film, too, but we don’t have much visual evidence for anything.

I remember hearing a 1988 “Sara” on someone’s old tape. It might have been Sweden or something. I don’t remember it being extraordinary, just straightforward noise with no dynamics, the way you’d expect it to sound in 1988. Sweden or Germany or something, although it isn’t on the Koblenz recording.