Fleetwood Mac Long Beach Arena 4/15/73

[dougl]

New torrent at dimeadozen.org:

Fleetwood Mac
Long Beach Arena
Long Beach, CA
April 15, 1973
Barry Goldstein Master Series Vol. Six via JEMS

Recording Gear: Sony TC-55 portable cassette recorder

JEMS 2023 Transfer: Barry Goldstein Master Cassette > Nakamichi RX-505 azimuth-adjusted playback > Sound Devices USBPre2 > Audacity 3.1 capture > iZotope RX > iZotope RX9 Advanced and Ozone 9 > MBIT+ resample to 16/44.1 > Audacity > xACT 2.50 > FLAC

01 Introduction and Tune-Up
02 The Green Manalishi (With The Two Prong Crown)
03 Oh Well
04 Get Like You Used To Be
05 "Land Watch" (Night Watch)
06 Same Old Blues
07 In The Country
08 Rattlesnake Shake

Known Faults: None

JEMS is proud to continue our partnership with longtime Southern California taper Barry Goldstein. Barry began taping in the early '70s and has been active ever since, though his later work focused more on video than audio. In his heyday, Barry was a dual threat, recording the shows he attended and photographing, too, with impressive results.

His master tapes circa 1973-83 include several previously uncirculated shows and recordings of David Bowie, Genesis, Roxy Music, Fleetwood Mac, Rory Gallagher, Eric Clapton, Supertramp, The Who and others.

Beyond his own captures, Barry was a close friend of the late, great Mike “The Mike” Millard, attending many concerts with him as well as recording nights and concerts Mike didn't cover. Like Jim R, Barry shared Mike the Mike tapes with JEMS that are not in general circulation for our continuing Lost and Found series.

Our sixth installment of Goldstein's master recordings should be a special one indeed for fans of the pre-Buckingham/Nicks iteration of Fleetwood Mac. Their set at the Long Beach Arena was part of a triple bill where they were sandwiched between Rory Gallagher and headliner Deep Purple. It captures a short-lived and little-documented era of the band tied to the album Penguin, released in early March 1973. The line-up beyond Mick Fleetwood and John McVie included Christine McVie and Bob Welch, along with Dave Walker and Bon Weston whose tours of duty would be considerably shorter than their bandmates.

The setlist reflects the transitional nature of this line-up and features only one song from Penguin, "Night Watch," introduced here by Welch as "Land Watch" along with an explanation that it is one of many recent songs written about outer space aliens.

Christine handles lead vocals on the Peter Green classic "Oh Well," and the rest of the set sticks to that era with Welch and Walker sharing lead vocals. "Land Watch," "In The Country" and "Rattlesnake Shake" are performed in extended jammy versions.

As seems to be the norm, Goldstein is again positioned very close to the stage. While his Sony TC-55 gets a little overwhelmed when the PA is at its loudest (resulting in a modest loss of clarity), the quality of this 51 year old recording is to our ears quite remarkable, offering sharp, clear fidelity and punchy sonics that more than hold their own. Samples provided.

JEMS thanks Barry for trusting us with his incredible audio, video and photographic archive, and for deciding now was the time to share that material widely with fans. Please let him know how much you appreciate it in the comments.

Of course, these shows would all be stuck on hard drives if it wasn’t for the contributions of mjk5510. As always, we couldn’t do it without him. Thanks as well to Professor Goody who gave this a vital pitch adjustment and echoed our feelings about this recording when he wrote, "Whoa! Amazing find!"

We look forward to sharing more of Barry's master recordings in 2024.

BK for JEMS

[dougl]

Also streaming here:

https://ia600803.us.archive.org/24/i...naCA.mp3?cnt=0

FYI Christine is not “handling the vocals on Oh Well”, Dave is

And also on YouTube here:

https://youtu.be/ZWJHygILsVw?si=bs_kLjMntiDQSpnv

[SteveMacD]

Super cool find! It was the one hole in all of the live recordings available.

“In The Country” is a really good song. I could see it being a hit with a little more development. It’s too bad Dave didn’t work out, although I like that at least the intro was recycled for “Why.”

I’m surprised at the absence of songs from FG, BT, and Penguin, save for “Night Watch.” Also it’s weird that Christine and Bob only sang one song each.

I prefer Bob on Manalishi, but I can hear how Dave would have fit in with Black Sabbath a little better.

[aleuzzi]

Fascinating. In some ways, it’s not surprising at all: the three or four Green tunes, Get Like You Used to Be…

But whereas concerts from the BT tour show the three leads taking turns, and a greater balance of the voices, this sounds like they wanted Walker to take over on stage. Also, the BT live recordings I’ve heard really feature the album they were promoting. This only has one song from Penguin.

Sounds like a band with an identity crisis. Still, the playing is strong and tasteful.