Live Album Reissue (April 9, 2021)

[David]

Originally Posted by jmn3

Sara is supposed to be from Cleveland, right?

Supposed to be (much of it is) from St. Louis November 1979.

Some of y’all might remember that, about twenty years ago Maureen Loftus snagged a bunch of concert audio soundboards and packaged them with annoying labels and sold them through her fan lists. St. Louis November 1979 was one of them. She included all the songs from the concert untouched (although some of the tracks have really annoying cuts that she herself made).

Say You Love Me, The Chain, Dreams, Not That Funny, Rhiannon, Over and Over, Oh Well, Sara, What Makes You Think, Oh Daddy, Save Me a Place, Landslide, Tusk, Angel, You Make Loving Fun, I’m So Afraid, World Turning, Go Your Own Way, Sisters of the Moon, Blue Letter, and Songbird.

For the first time (unless we happened to attend the show at the Checkerdome), we heard the full performance of Sara, which I uploaded here:

• https://gofile.io/d/es5lOP

You can hear what’s what. The opening stanza appears on both the 1980 live album and the video documentary. A shortened version of the rest of the vocal appears on the documentary, and a completely different vocal appears on the 1980 live album for reasons unknown.

[BigAl84]

Omg Maureen...wow this brings back some memories. Her and this other dude sold exclusive leaked goodies back then. I think the dudes name was James John??? Something like that.

WTF ever happened to them. I was always a bit disappointed in how much tape hiss was on the Baton Rouge ‘78 and Memphis ‘82 boots, but I suppose that was out of their control. They always kind of over sold them as these pristine recordings which they were not.

Did the mysterious box of board tapes ever get leaked from the guy in Australia who fell off the face of the earth too?

[jmn3]

Originally Posted by BigAl84

Omg Maureen...wow this brings back some memories. Her and this other dude sold exclusive leaked goodies back then. I think the dudes name was James John??? Something like that.

WTF ever happened to them. I was always a bit disappointed in how much tape hiss was on the Baton Rouge ‘78 and Memphis ‘82 boots, but I suppose that was out of their control. They always kind of over sold them as these pristine recordings which they were not.

Did the mysterious box of board tapes ever get leaked from the guy in Australia who fell off the face of the earth too?

Oh jeez, I wonder if one of these two are who I bought my one and only paid bootleg purchase off eBay probably in '99 or 2000? The aforementioned Memphis '82 show. Somewhere around the house I still have the two CD's complete with their printed-at-someone's-home "cloud" label with fancy italicized font.

Definitely was not the sound I was expecting but still an interesting view into the Mirage Tour. Pretty sure Lindsey was completely smashed by the time he got to Go Your Own Way. His "thank you for coming" speech during the intro was a bit drunky sounding and the big solo comes to a ramshackle ending.

[Wdm6789]

Originally Posted by David

Supposed to be (much of it is) from St. Louis November 1979.

Some of y’all might remember that, about twenty years ago Maureen Loftus snagged a bunch of concert audio soundboards and packaged them with annoying labels and sold them through her fan lists. St. Louis November 1979 was one of them. She included all the songs from the concert untouched (although some of the tracks have really annoying cuts that she herself made).


For the first time (unless we happened to attend the show at the Checkerdome), we heard the full performance of Sara, which I uploaded here:

• https://gofile.io/d/es5lOP

You can hear what’s what. The opening stanza appears on both the 1980 live album and the video documentary. A shortened version of the rest of the vocal appears on the documentary, and a completely different vocal appears on the 1980 live album for reasons unknown.

It’s great to hear the full version of that Sara from the music video. Thank you for sharing. It sounds so much better than what is on the live album. I wonder why they redid the vocals. The instruments sound better too on this one.

Also, I really like the slightly faster tempo Sara from 1980 and especially 1982. Lindsey does a slightly different guitar riff in 1982 and I love it. I wish they were adding a live 1982 Sara to this deluxe reissue or they put it on Deluxe Mirage.

[johnnystorms]

Originally Posted by Macfan4life

Correct. Over My Head was not the Tusk tour. This reissue is a grab bag of tours.

The Rhiannon on the live album is absolute perfection. Damn it rocks and the vocals and everything is humming like a well oiled machine. As much as I LOVE the Mirage concert and all the songs, Rhiannon is the low point. Stevie mailed in the performance and the song just does not have the tempo and power as earlier tours.

If I had 2 questions to ask Lindsey. One would be about the urban legend about the tracking on Tusk and the other would be why in the world did the band include a song on the live album where his guitar string breaks at the end. Maybe they thought this was cool? You can hear someone (sounds like Chris) say at the end..."you broke a string didn't you" Now that is some weird s**t. Sara live is so wonderful it does not need touching yet they went to great efforts to touch the song for the album. Yet of all the Don't Stop performances, this is the one they picked. Strange. no?

(note to someone: I know the record company selects the songs so please hold the lecture. But the band could have corrected this)

The Live album has always been probably my favorite because back then Fleetwood Mac live vs the studio was like a different band. When I lived in West Palm Beach there used to be a hard rock station that never played anything from Fleetwood Mac because of course they were not hard rock. However, they would play the live album's Oh Well. Lindsey is on fire and John and Mick are flaming even more. Listen to that bass and Micks ending. Damn they were tight! (OMG, I said damn twice on this post ..now 3 times)

I'm all about the Rhiannon on Live!! By far my fave of that song.. lurv it.

[greendaze5]

Here's a pro-shot of 'Sara' from the Tusk Tour (courtesy of 'TheSuperFleetwoodMac') who had posted this before, though it seems it was later taken down. Don't know the exact show date.

Interestingly, when Billy Burnette and Rick Vito joined up in 1987, Christine and the rest of the band gushed about them. She said how fun the new guys are, and complained how Lindsey never used to smile on stage. Not sure about that - Lindsey and Christine look pretty lovey-dovey at the 4:38 time-mark.

[bombaysaffires]

Originally Posted by greendaze5

Here's a pro-shot of 'Sara' from the Tusk Tour (courtesy of 'TheSuperFleetwoodMac') who had posted this before, though it seems it was later taken down. Don't know the exact show date.

Interestingly, when Billy Burnette and Rick Vito joined up in 1987, Christine and the rest of the band gushed about them. She said how fun the new guys are, and complained how Lindsey never used to smile on stage. Not sure about that - Lindsey and Christine look pretty lovey-dovey at the 4:38 time-mark.

Sara is just so lovely when FM does it; it sounds cheesy when any of her solo bands did it, even on the BD tour with great players like Roy Bittan and Benmont on keyboards. The solo versions relied way too heavily on synthesized keyboards and really what drives the song is the rhythms of Mick and John, with the keys and guitars layered on.

[Macfan4life]

Originally Posted by bombaysaffires

Sara is just so lovely when FM does it; it sounds cheesy when any of her solo bands did it, even on the BD tour with great players like Roy Bittan and Benmont on keyboards. The solo versions relied way too heavily on synthesized keyboards and really what drives the song is the rhythms of Mick and John, with the keys and guitars layered on.

Yes definitely. Sara lacked the passion musically with her solo bands. Christine on the bench piano, Lindsey, Mick, and John give the song its original intent.

The only Mac song that I like better in her solo career was the first 2 tours of Gold Dust Woman. They made the song a very dark rocker. Everything after those tours was a joke especially the 1989 version of GDW. Horrific cheezy synth keyboards.

[HomerMcvie]

Originally Posted by Macfan4life

Yes definitely. Sara lacked the passion musically with her solo bands. Christine on the bench piano,

What is a bench piano? I've Googled TF out of it, and all I find is piano bench...?

[jmn3]

Originally Posted by Macfan4life

Yes definitely. Sara lacked the passion musically with her solo bands. Christine on the bench piano, Lindsey, Mick, and John give the song its original intent.

The only Mac song that I like better in her solo career was the first 2 tours of Gold Dust Woman. They made the song a very dark rocker. Everything after those tours was a joke especially the 1989 version of GDW. Horrific cheezy synth keyboards.

Her solo versions of Gypsy and Angel were also painful. I would say the more current solo-Gypsy's are improved but Waddy just doesn't have the same...finesse? And to be fair, Gypsy has sucked solo or band for 20 years.

I'd have to go back and listen to Gold Dust Woman from those tours but wasn't it a rather dark performance by the Mac on the Rumours tour as well? Stevie's solo stuff from her third tour until her '94 tour is rather unlistenable to me. I can never understand the love of her Red Rocks video by some people. It hurts my ears to listen to that.

I would argue that Gold Dust Woman was always done well by Fleetwood Mac. Even in the last decade plus, crackpot dancing notwithstanding, musically it's always been pretty good.

[Macfan4life]

Originally Posted by jmn3

Her solo versions of Gypsy and Angel were also painful. I would say the more current solo-Gypsy's are improved but Waddy just doesn't have the same...finesse? And to be fair, Gypsy has sucked solo or band for 20 years.

I'd have to go back and listen to Gold Dust Woman from those tours but wasn't it a rather dark performance by the Mac on the Rumours tour as well? Stevie's solo stuff from her third tour until her '94 tour is rather unlistenable to me. I can never understand the love of her Red Rocks video by some people. It hurts my ears to listen to that.

I would argue that Gold Dust Woman was always done well by Fleetwood Mac. Even in the last decade plus, crackpot dancing notwithstanding, musically it's always been pretty good.

I dont mean in any way GDW was never done well by Fleetwood Mac. I just like the raw guitar riffs by Waddy and Benmont's keyboards. The tempo of her early solo days of the song improved the song for a live performance. It was different than the Mac's version. For an opening number, it fit pretty well.

[Macfan4life]

Originally Posted by HomerMcvie

What is a bench piano? I've Googled TF out of it, and all I find is piano bench...?

Really? I also googled and only saw a piano bench too. Where I come from, we call the upright piano a bench piano. It looks like a bench, no?

In grade school, the music teacher would push in the bench piano to the classroom and she/he would play music and we would sing. After class the teacher would say, can someone help Ms Rogers push the bench piano.

Where I come from we also refer to shopping carts as buggies
We call rubber bands gum bands
We call a vacuum a sweeper
We don't call icy roads slippery....we say slippy

I am originally from western PA and the Appalachian valley region has their own speak.

[Ulpian]

I am excited about this release.

I’d really be interested to know if they’d do a Dance one, too. I would be very happy to see a two-disc version which had all the songs from the concert plus good versions of the extra songs from the tour.

[anusha]

Sigh. I bought a super overpriced CD of extras from James John on eBay in the late 90s. What a time.

Is there any good source to download bootlegs now?

[HomerMcvie]

Originally Posted by Macfan4life

Really? I also googled and only saw a piano bench too. Where I come from, we call the upright piano a bench piano. It looks like a bench, no?

In grade school, the music teacher would push in the bench piano to the classroom and she/he would play music and we would sing. After class the teacher would say, can someone help Ms Rogers push the bench piano.

Where I come from we also refer to shopping carts as buggies
We call rubber bands gum bands
We call a vacuum a sweeper
We don't call icy roads slippery....we say slippy

I am originally from western PA and the Appalachian valley region has their own speak.

OMG, once you said buggy, I thought maybe you were from Tennessee! They say buggy here, and it drives me crazy! I love britches and fixin', but buggy drives me buggy!

I've always called that piano an upright. Spinet is also a form of upright.

I use sweeper and vacuum interchangeably.

I also use both pop and soda.

And have been told that I actually have zero accent. Undetectable.

Where do you live now?