Quote:
Originally posted by face of glass
I guess it's my lack of knowledge again but I wasn't really aware of other backing players on the Tusk tour besides Ray Lindsey until I read Bob Brunning's book:
"Messrs Fleetwood, Buckingham, Nicks and the McVies, joined by Ray Lindsey (guitar), Tony Todaro (percussion) and Jeffrey Sova (keyboards) all doubling as road crew members, rehearsed for six weeks in September 1979."
Which songs did Todaro and Sova appear on then?
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They didn't do much as backup players. Todaro played drums on "Tusk" on his own kit set up behind Mick. I haven't seen the doc from St. Louis in a long time & I can't remember whether you can see Todaro playing on the video. You can see both kits in some of the pics I took of the Hollywood Bowl & Cow Palace shows, but Todaro's kit was behind a cloth backdrop of some sort that was weirdly lighted from behind. Sova stayed offstage & played an Oberheim on "Tusk." He probably played a synth on "Tusk" on the Mirage Tour, too, & he definitely played a pad of some sort on "Hold Me," which provided a nice, but rather faint bedrock for Christine's acoustic grand piano on that number. Contrary to widespread opinion, he did NOT regularly play a clavinet on "You Make Loving Fun" on any Fleetwood Mac tour, but Brett did starting in '97. (Interestingly, Garfield did not add a clavinet voice to the song on the tours he did.)
Apparently, one of the rags out there says Fleetwood had worked up some sort of arrangement with "Not That Funny" for the Tusk Tour that featured Sova on synth, but that idea was canned before the tour started. We have a couple of "Not That Funny" recordings from various 1979 rehearsals, but none of them features Sova on synth.
Keep in mind that when they talk about backup musicians on these old tours, it's a LOT different from the way the backups are used nowadays. On the reunion tour & this tour (as well as the two tours with Vito & Burnette), the backups were onstage playing on virtually every number. This simply wasn't the case on the late '70s or early '80s tours. There were select numbers that the backup guys played, but most of the concert was just the four musicians, which is precisely what gave the live sound such an empty quality to many listeners. A lot of fans just do not like the sound of the band on those older tours.