Mirages Tour 82 Fleetwood Mac

Two years after the Lindsey Buckingham/Stevie Nicks/Christine McVie-less incarnation of Fleetwood Mac crashed and burned, their classic '70s lineup reunited for an MTV Unplugged session and an accompanying tour. Although it's likely that the reunion was for monetary purposes, it made creative sense as well – no members were as compelling solo as they were with the group…

Live is a double live album released by British-American rock band Fleetwood Mac in 1980. It was the first live album from the then-current line-up of the band, and the next would be The Dance from 1997. The album was certified gold in November 1981. Live consists of recordings taken primarily from the 1979-1980 Tusk Tour, together with a few from the earlier Rumours Tour of 1977. Two songs were recorded at a Paris soundcheck and three at a performance at Santa Monica Civic Auditorium "for an audience of friends and road crew."

Over the years, there have been a surplus of Fleetwood Mac compilations but prior to 2018's 50 Years: Don't Stop, very few have attempted to tell the band's story from beginning to end. There was only one, actually: 25 Years-The Chain, released two years into the Mac's uncertain post-Lindsey Buckingham era. Buckingham rejoined the band in 1997 but he was kicked out prior to the November '18 release of 50 Years: Don't Stop, his departure coloring the perception of the triple-disc compilation in the sense that Fleetwood Mac's story doesn't belong to him. 50 Years proves this through its chronological sequencing, which underscores the group's evolution from blues-rockers to album rock titans and, finally, to pop superstars (its accompanying single disc of highlights, in contrast, is deliberately front-loaded with hits, so it's not as instructive).

Fleetwood Mac was still primarily a blues band on this, their first album after the departure of founder/nominal leader Peter Green. But the remaining members, Mick Fleetwood, John McVie, Jeremy Spencer, and Danny Kirwan (plus McVie's wife, Christine, not yet officially part of the group) started broadening the band's use of blues into other contexts, and adding new influences in the absence of Green's laser-like focus…

More than any other Fleetwood Mac album, Tusk is born of a particular time and place – it could only have been created in the aftermath of Rumours, which shattered sales records, and in turn gave the group a blank check for their next album. But if they were falling apart during the making of Rumours, they were officially broken and shattered during the making of Tusk, and that disconnect between bandmembers resulted in a sprawling, incoherent, and utterly brilliant 20-track double album…