Fleetwood Mac - June 1980

Fleetwood Mac are a band with an amazing history, the late sixties line up with the astonishing Peter Green, the addition of the brilliant Christine Perfect to the line up, the defection of Jeremy Spencer mid-tour to join the Children of God, Peter Green's troubles, the parachuting in of Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks - it all seems like too much for one band. Of course the various iterations were quite different in what they produced musically and whilst I had been mainly a fan of the early stuff I was bowled over by 'Rumours'. What makes that album for me is the contribution from the two women in the band, Christine Perfect and Stevie Nicks - their singing astonishing and the best songs, in my view, written by them. The tour I saw was officially a tour of their following album 'Tusk' which had had mixed reviews and which I didn't really know but I, like most of the audience, wanted to hear the Rumours' songs and the band didn't disappoint. The only songs I can recall at this distance that weren't from Rumours are 'Tusk' itself and 'Rhiannon', both of which made an impression. The highlights though were as expected the singing of Christine and Stevie and songs such as 'Gold Dust Woman', 'Oh Daddy', 'Don't Stop', 'You Make Loving Fun' and the superb 'Songbird'.