Now that's an awesome way to hear a great concert! I love Fleetwood Mac too, and have a crazy story about them. My future (back then) husband and I went to a Fleetwood Mac concert at the University of Oklahoma (in Norman) back in the early 70s. It was somewhere on (or near) the OU campus in a venue that in my memory seemed like a huge tent filled with bleachers. Fleetwood Mac was opening for Richie Havens. I don't think I'd ever even listened to a Fleetwood Mac song before this show. This was pre-Buckingham/Nicks, so after trying my best to decipher their incredibly complex & drama-filled band history, I'm thinking the lineup must've been Mick Fleetwood, Christine McVie, John McVie, Bob Welch, Bob Weston, and maybe Dave Walker. Back then they were mostly an awesome blues band, and they killed it! The crowd was so pumped that everyone just wanted MORE!! So I think they may have done some encores, and they may have used up some of Richie Havens' set time.
Nobody wanted them to stop, but eventually somebody had to come out and say, "And now for our headliner, whom you've all been waiting for .... Richie Havens!" So everybody was cheering wildly, but then out comes Mr. Havens with his beautiful acoustic guitar, and as wonderful an artist as he was, there was still a significant portion of the audience members who were having trouble settling down and making the transition from rocking out to sitting quietly and attentively, so there were some "classroom management issues," causing Mr. Havens to get angry, which was very uncomfortable to watch.
It was sad, because under different circumstances he must have been an absolutely mesmerizing performer, but that had to be one of the most epically awkward concert transitions ever. It was just a near impossible situation all around. If they had reversed the order of the performances, it would have worked great. But Richie Havens was a bigger name than Fleetwood Mac at the time, and he was the headliner, and headliners play last.
It’s hard to imagine though that the same Richie Havens who just a few years before had to play for 3 hours straight when he was the opening act at Woodstock (because all the other artists were stuck in the traffic jam getting there), and kept his cool even when he was totally out of material until he improvised the iconic song “Freedom” on the spot ... then fast forward a few years to this goofy college crowd, most of whom were probably high on Tulsa Tops, and he just kinda lost it. I will always wonder about that! But everybody has a rough night now and then.
I've loved Fleetwood Mac ever since that night though, and I still can't decide if I like the bluesy or the pop rock Mac better, even though the latter version was great and definitely a much bigger commercial success. It’s also pretty amazing that they persevered through all the crazy band drama years to finally reach the level of success they had the last 12 years or so of their history (even though apparently the drama never stopped).
