News Coverage of Opening Night 1979 — Pocatello
 

Very short but beautiful trip back to opening night of the TUSK tour, news reporter Michael Kastner. Lindsey and Mick are excited about the nine new songs in the set.

Some of the 1978 mishaps with Stevie’s voice and Lindsey’s medical problems surface here. There was obviously a widespread concern about Stevie’s problems and a full-scale tour schedule. You really did used to hear all the time in those days that the band may need to cancel some upcoming show if her voice didn’t hold up. We heard about that all the time — so different from 1998 to the present, when she can tour with the best of them.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X4Fy...o9eUVw&index=1

Yes, cancellations were a possibility even into the 1980s. In the pre-internet era before social media and mass information, you might not hear of the cancellation until the last minute. In the fall of 1987, we drove a short 80 miles to The Frank Erwin Center in Austin, Texas for the Tango in the Night Tour. As our vehicle drove into the parking lot of the venue, a large digital marquee read, "Tonight Fleetwood Mac - Canceled".

The issue was Stevie's voice. The show was later rescheduled for December 1987.

Without technology and prerecorded backing tracks, cancellations these days are uncommon.

I'm throwing the BS flag. Shows are still canceled all the time for lost voices. The backup singers can be dead. The keyboard player can be dead. "A" lead vocalist can't be dead(except Jon Bon Jovi, where he faces the drummer to ~hit~ the high notes). And a lead guitarist can't fake it(the guitar players know it's fake).

What I heard in this video coincide with what Mick told while commenting about the financial debacle of the tour.

Every time our BAC 1-11 jet roared into a new airport, six black limousines pulled up to the tarmac and whisked us hither and yon. It was all wonderful, occasionally depraved. and ruinously expensive; but it also helped to keep us going during the most challenging and exhausting year of our lives, from October 1979 to September 1980.
We started at the Pocatello (Idaho) Mini Dome on October 26.

I think the voice therapist was Robin. She was with Stevie since the Rumours days.

This was in my recommended videos a few days ago. Its a 9 year old clip which is weird how they suddenly pop up to the recommended side. I loved this for several reasons. Mostly for Mick and Lindsey giving such a young and inexperienced reporter a chance in a small town. Lindsey states there are 9 new songs in the set. And sure enough I am pretty sure all new 9 songs stayed in the set. I have often wondered why Fleetwood Mac always started their tours in the most rural places. Many bands start in Houston or a large city. Fleetwood Mac always started in Ames, Iowa or Idaho for Tusk. Does anyone know why? I can guess that they don't want to play for a mass market until they tweak their set? Most bands would not even play Idaho because its so rural. Was the Tusk tour the only time they played there?

It IS Pocatello, Idaho—so I imagine some of the reporting relished in framing the band as decadent, west-coast Prima-Donnas (is that how you spell it?).

What an odd place to start the tour. Unless they wanted to work out kinks and get experience with the new set in a smaller venue first?

What were those 9 songs? I was looking for 1979 setlists, not checked all concerts but from a sampling i found 8:

Not That Funny
Over and Over
What Makes You Think You're the One
Sara
Save Me a Place
Tusk
Angel
Sister of the Moon

What was the ninth chosen new song?

I suppose Think About Me which did not appear till the end of the tour. Maybe Lindsey meant to say we practiced 9 new songs for the tour but only 8 at a time appear at a show?

Bands will open a tour in a small market for a few different reasons. If something goes wrong or a bad review is written, it will fall off the radar much quicker compared to LA , NY etc. It also takes the pressure off the band a little bit. They're big fish in a small pond, the crowd should be easy to wow etc.

Fast forward a bit...in 2003/2013 they opened their tour in Columbus OH. That was probably a good location for how they were routing the tour and the cities they were hubbing out of. They also did several days of dress/tech rehearsal before the show. There were probably only so many arenas that had an extended time period available for the band.

Yes, I checked some first dates and Think About Me and Over & Over weren't included. So actually only 7 new songs were included.

In St. Louis (November 6), they sang “Over and Over.” (Eight TUSK songs total that night.)

The TUSK material seemed to come and go from October to September. It’s hard to keep track of. Here’s the best I can do, given what’s out there:

Played intermittently

• Over and Over
• Think About Me
• Save Me a Place
• That’s Enough for Me

Played every show (barring emergencies)

• Sara
• What Makes You Think You’re the One?
• Not That Funny
• Sisters of the Moon
• Angel
• Tusk

Rehearsed but possibly never played 79–80

• The Ledge
• That’s All for Everyone
• I Know I’m Not Wrong
• Brown Eyes
• Honey Hi

In early October 1982, Toni Graphia (Outlander, Galactica) and her roommate and I jumped in her car and drove from Santa Barbara to the LA Forum (Toni was in the screenwriting/film courses at UCSB, I was in comparative literature). Parking lot empty. Marquee said Mac show was canceled. Lady at box office said Stevie had walking pneumonia. Shows later rescheduled for October 21–22 (filmed for HBO). Men at Work was supposed to open in early October, but future Mac member Dave Mason was pulled in for the makeup shows.

"voice therapist" should be in quotes, because Robin was not in fact an ACTUAL, trained voice therapist; she was just Stevie's assistant in managing various therapies for her voice. Typical Stevie embellishment.

And starting in more out of the way cities to get their "sea legs" is a common strategy. If things need to shake out better to do it there and be super slick by the time you get to major cities.

Was "Think About Me" added to the set after it was released as the 3rd single?

The song is clean pop/classic Fleetwood Mac. It's a shame that it didn't do better on the charts.

Wow, thank you for posting this… very helpful. It’s interesting that Christine sang so few songs from Tusk, and intermittently at that. I’m surprised she didn’t sing Brown Eyes during this tour, but added it to the Mirage and Tango tours later.

It’s too bad Mick didn’t delve more about rehearsals and how the band came up with setlists, etc in his books- I think that’s the kind of stuff fans would really like to learn about.