Live is a double live album released by British-American rock band Fleetwood Mac on 5 December 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 (500,000 copies sold) by the RIAA in November 1981. A deluxe edition of the album was released on 9 April 2021.
Live consists of recordings taken primarily from the 1979âÂÂ1980 Tusk Tour and a Buckingham Nicks track, "Don't Let Me Down Again", from the 1975 Fleetwood Mac Tour. The deluxe edition also includes a few recordings from the earlier Rumours Tour of 1977 and the later Mirage Tour of 1982. According to the liner notes, 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".
Drummer Mick Fleetwood had originally suggested that the band release a live album at the time of the Rumours Tour, although the band decided against it, with recording engineer Richard Dashut arguing that it would interfere with the band's in-studio identity. The band still recorded over 400 shows from 1975-79 in case they changed their minds. At the conclusion of the Tusk Tour, Fleetwood proposed the idea again, and this time the band agreed despite Buckingham's and John McVie's initial reservations. The album was digitally recorded using technology developed by Soundstream. Ken Caillat mentioned in a 1981 interview that the band spent $20,000 to digitally mix the album and that it cost around $500 per day to use the digital equipment. Billboard said that Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab half-speed mastered the album for the audiophile market.
Of particular note are three new songsâÂÂChristine McVie's "One More Night", Stevie Nicks's "Fireflies", and a backstage rendition of the Beach Boys' "The Farmer's Daughter". The latter two were released as singles; "Fireflies" reached the top 60 in the US, while "The Farmer's Daughter" reached the top 10 in Austria.
The band covered "Farmer's Daughter" at the request of Buckingham, who deemed the Brian Wilson tune "obscure" and "contemporary" enough to include on the album. A recording of "The Farmer's Daughter" also appears on the Tusk re-release of 2004. "Don't Let Me Down Again" is a song from the Buckingham Nicks album and was recorded during a 1975 performance in Passaic.
Fleetwood Mac
Additional personnel
Production