Quote:
Originally Posted by David
I believe that Mick was conveying what Lindsey felt. In interviews stretching back to his first solo album in 1981 — even to the Fleetwood Mac tour preceding that — you can hear Lindsey vent a certain frustration with what he used to call paraphrasing: transforming the character of a studio track into something that would work onstage, with messy live sound, fewer people than ideal, or even the need to program a set for momentum and vulgar energy rather than nuance or subtlety. (That’s why I spend so much time repeating myself that Lindsey’s particular character as a musician really doesn’t lend itself to arena rock — the concert history of Fleetwood Mac from 1975 to now is the history of taking the subdued, alluring stuff OUT, not putting more of it in. I even think Stevie would do better in small venues, where she could work with a broader emotional palette and not have to placate the beer-guzzling, stoned party-heads.)
You have a painstakingly crafted arrangement from a studio recording and if that song is a hit or it has some value that can be exploited in a live set (like, say, “Eyes of the World” or “World Turning”), it has to be paraphrased. The more complex its construction in the studio, the more paraphrasing it needs. Based on what Lindsey has always said, that necessity to rephrase songs differently for the live set seems to have been more confining than liberating. I’m sure he has always loved opening up and letting loose with searing solos and “yelling and screaming” (as he called it in his 1981 Innerview with Jim Ladd). But he’s also been bummed out with the live situation in Fleetwood Mac: four people, give or take an extra part here or there, to paraphrase all the voicings — and having to eliminate many of them because you’ve run out of hands or singers and nobody in the band knows how to use the prerecorded stuff so that it sounds real and not artificial. That frustration is what drove him to do what he did in 1993 for his tour. The Cradle set was intricately rehearsed and mapped out like a blueprint — they probably used guitar and vocal charts like horn charts for a jazz band (or like the charts Rickie Lee Jones and Tom Scott crafted for her amazing Pirates album).
Lindsey toured with Fleetwood for many years without getting the opportunity or the approval to do what he wanted with ambitious arrangements. Not that the others were to blame for blocking him. But imagine trying to get the 1982 band together for two or three months of serious rehearsal to plan something so sophisticated. It was probably all Mick could do to get his band into rehearsal for three weeks of facking around.
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You’re right, of course, that Lindsey would prefer the songs live to sound as close to the studio originals as possible. This ambition has been a weakness, I think. What distinguished FM’s live shows from 75-82 was both raw energy and a decidedly looser, harder attack to the music, which transformed delicate, well-crafted pop tunes into high-energy rock-n-roll. The band’s rhythm section (including Christine) had been doing this very well since the early 70s. There are some terrific concerts from the Danny and Bob years that demonstrate the dichotomy and the purpose it served. The practice continued well into the early 80s. Consider John’s incredible bass work on the live version of “Sisters” from the studio Tour documentary. He wasn’t playing those bubbling lines on the studio recording, where LB’s arrangement called for minimalism and restraint. Stevie’s strong vocals have often infused live performances with the right energy to shore up subtle touches that couldn’t be reproduced live. I think of her vocals on “Hold Me” and “Eyes”—two songs in which, for the studio versions, she was, significantly, absent. Her presence on the live readings give those songs some serious lift. And then there’s LB himself, whose frenetic guitar work and boundless nervous energy transforms pleasant and/or contained studio songs into breakout moments on stage. It is true that some of their songs simply don’t work as well live: some of Christine’s softer, subtler material, for instance—but that is largely because Christine’s voice works better in a chamber than in an arena. Still, her own propulsive keyboard work on songs like “Angel” really added to the group sound in ways that wasn’t as readily evident on the records.
I guess what I’m saying is I’ve always loved FM’s split personality: their live music was, even from it’s earliest days, meant to be an abstraction of the disciplined records. One used to go to Mac concerts to be bewitched (and not just by Stevie’s twirls). The transformation from sonic studio professionals to raucous yet inventive rock-n-rollers was worth seeing. For whatever reason, by 1982, LB was over it, wanted a more polished sound. Perhaps this was his recognition that FM’s fan base was getting older, more yuppified? Or maybe he himself was tired of tearing apart his precious darlings on stage...Either way, the desire to sound like the albums goes against the band’s natural strengths.