[David]

The album was released on December 8, the day Lennon was murdered. Not to sound crass, but I think that sunk airplay right out of the gate. I was at the record store on December 8 to buy the album, and the store was playing “A Day in the Life” over and over. Ordinarily, on a Fleetwood Mac release day, you’d walk into a record store and hear it. Radio, too, was naturally and justifiably all over Lennon’s great legacy, and the Mac album was ignored for several days. Only later did I start hearing a couple of things on the album, like “Oh Well” and “Monday Morning” on KMET in Los Angeles. But not much at all, really. The album developed a sort of cut-out bin reputation, even more so than Tusk.

I think it was a rush job but not without strengths. All those barn-burning performances plus some great cover and sleeve art. It had the spirit of Tusk. It just wasn’t what the radio public wanted to hear back then. Fleetwood Mac in concert was for seeing, not for hearing, people thought. Maybe it was the wrong time for a live Mac album. The live albums that had been getting all the airplay, like Journey and Cheap Trick and Jackson Browne, had all been released a few years earlier. Mac was a little late to the table. Live Rust was getting more airplay on KMET in 1980/81 than Mac Live even when the former was already a few years old.