The acoustic numbers that close the first CD, “Never Going Back Again” and “Landslide,” feel more organic and emotional than their glossier and more sterile recordings. That’s certainly true for a fiery “Don’t Let Me Down Again,” a rare Buckingham/Nicks song few in their audience likely recognized then or now. Regardless of the eventual consumer indifference, these are exciting, often raw performances (well, raw for Mac), that pushed the somewhat staid studio versions into the red.
Sizzling renditions of “The Chain” (at nearly seven minutes) and Nicks’ Tusk deep track “Sisters of the Moon” alone make this worth hearing even, perhaps especially, for those who already own FM Live. Also Buckingham dips back into Peter Green’s catalog to charge through “The Green Manalishi (With the Two Pronged Crown)” with as much, and arguably more, exuberant energy than he applied to Green’s “Oh Well” on the initial issue. There are gems like McVie’s “Hold Me” which wouldn’t appear on an album for another few years. It contains 14 previously unreleased selections running almost 75 minutes, most but not all from the same tour. That has been rectified with a newly added third platter. So there was lots of actual concert material missing. Two others (“Don’t Stop” and “Dreams”) are credited to an audience-free sound check. Three of those, one each from the group (a cover of a seldom heard Brian Wilson song “Farmer’s Daughter”), Stevie Nicks (the lovely “Fireflies”) and Christine McVie (“One More Night”), were new songs captured in front of “crew and friends” but sounding like studio creations.
The original 18 tracks ran over 90 minutes but was only a sampler of the band’s post- Tusk dates. That hasn’t stopped Rhino from expanding and re-releasing it as part of an ongoing line of similarly reissued Fleetwood Mac titles now being touted under the “super deluxe” banner… with a price to match. R.E.M.’s Monster is a prime example but the double Fleetwood Mac Live set, originally released in 1980, was another ubiquitous item buyers generally tended to ignore after its early luster waned. In the not so distant past, used CD shoppers could dependably find once enormously popular discs in the bargain priced used bins. Fleetwood Mac | Live: Super Deluxe Edition | (Rhino)
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