An already legendary band with at the peak of their popularity
"I have not listened to this album in a LONG time and gotta admit it’s kind of cool to hear all of the young energy in their performances and their voices."
October 23rd, Welcome to “Twofer-Tuesday” here on “Live Vinyl Lovefest”. This is a new segment where on Tuesday’s I’m gonna focus on double albums only. (thanks Perme) Today I’m going drop the needle on Fleetwood Mac LIVE. This was recorded in 1980 right at the height of their popularity and not too terribly long after Rumors had dropped of which they were still clearly riding the wave. If you lived through that era, you can’t deny that there was no getting away from Fleetwood Mac. They simply owned the airwaves. I have not listened to this album in a LONG time and gotta admit it’s kind of cool to hear all of the young energy in their performances and their voices.
So, I’ll also take this opportunity to give little shout out to my good buddy Mike Campbell who is currently filling in for Lindsey Buckingham on the current tour. He says he’s having a fantastic time out there and is simply loving playing with the rhythm section of Fleetwood and McVie. Can’t wait to experience it in a few weeks here in Phoenix.
The album doesn’t credit which recording truck was used for these recordings, but it credits Ken Caillat and Biff Dawes as the recording engineers. (Maybe Westwood One?) The album is Mixed by Rumors alumni Ken Caillat and Richard Dashut at George Massenburg Studios. Live sound mixed by Trip Khalif and Richard Dashut.
Funny, I remember the first time I ever met legendary live sound mixer and long time Clair Brothers disciple Trip Khalif. I was about 20 or so years old and working part time as a wanna be sound guy at The Uptown Theater in Kansas City Missouri. Great little theater that hosted lots of shows. On this day Christine McVie was coming through on her solo tour. Trip was the FOH mixer. Before this day I was convinced that we kind of “had it going on” at our little venue with regard to PA systems etc. We had a Midas Pro5 and custom sound installation by Chip Monk. Heady stuff for the era. Trip came in, took a look around and said. Uh, no. (okay, that’s a VERY polite version of what he actually said) So, he brought in his own console and then stacked four S4s per side. I had no idea that a concert could sound that good in that building. On that night I re-gauged my belief in what our sound system was actually capable of, and also, maybe more importantly, reset the bar on what I felt was acceptable in my own abilities. I’ll just say it was a “humbling” experience. I’ve held Trip in VERY high regard as mixer ever since that day and he has certainly not disappointed in his career. You can look it up … :-)