Quote:
Originally posted by strandinthewind
I have a video of sometime probably after the White Album tour but before or during Rumors. They are playing outdoors (Stevie is in Rhiannon drag_ and CM's keyboard is pretty heavy during ISA. This concert was also on the Disney special a few years ago. I thought CM instrument said Moog on it. But, I have not seen it in awhile. So, I could be wrong.
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I'll try to provide what I know: The sound you hear on any live performance of "I'm So Afraid" is the B3. It was the large wood thing with four legs in 1975 & 1976. Sitting on top of it during those years was an ARP String Ensemble & a Hohner Combo Pianet (or a Pianet N on occasion). You can see a picture of the String Ensemble in the photo collage on the lyric sheet in the Rumours album. She said she used to play the ARP on live performances of "Sunny Side of Heaven." The String Ensemble was dumped out of the live gear for the Rumours tour (you can hear Christine playing a B3 on "Sunny Side of Heaven" on the February 26, 1977, rehearsal). The Pianet N was ditched in favor of a new Combo Pianet (essentially the same mechanism & sound, but a smaller, more roadworthy case without the gold rim) for the 1977 tour, & the B3 was recased into a sleeker, black case with metal legs. I know of no instance during these years in which she played a Moog onstage (although she played a Mini-Moog on the white album). She was always very synth-phobic, in fact -- analog in those days & digital in the years to come. The single exception seems to be her reliance on the DX-7 for some studio work in the 1980s (this is the board she is seen playing in the "Big Love" video).
By the time they were ready to tour for "Tusk," the era of the Hohner, as far as Christine was concerned, was over. She obviously opted not to adopt the then-new Pianet T model, probably because its sound wasn't phat enough: it was more akin to the tinkly Rhodes sound, which wasn't able to cut through the mix onstage. So she switched over to a magnificent instrument built by Yamaha --- the first two-channel stereo electronic piano on the market, in fact. She set that monster (over 130 pounds) on top of her B3 & played it through two Fleetwood Mac tours & her 1984 solo tour before abandoning it.