Here be a thread where you can link the world (or at least this small corner of it) to clips of your favourite musicians being all awesome and shit on stage, through the medium of YouTube!
I'll start...
This is Fleetwood Mac performing "The Chain" on the L.A leg of their 1982 Mirage Tour (Mirage, for the record, is yet another in a long line of under-rated Mac albums that aren't called Rumours).
There's so much to love about this performance - Lindsey Buckhingham, high as all fuck and dressed like a twat, the many strange and scary faces of Mick Fleetwood, the quiet dignity of Christine McVie as she plays her part in this absurd musical theatre with unflinching professionalism - it's like a snaphot of everything that made the Mac great.
For the most part, Stevie Nicks is a spectator here. But that's not to say she's not at the heart of it all. I always thought of Nicks as Buckhingham's muse. He was always at his best when he was reacting to Stevie - be it her mere existence, her lyrics, her songs, his love for her, his hatred for her, his seeming need to upstage her wherever and whenever possible - and you get a real sense of that here. Every sideways glance, every nod, every smile, every grimace, every minute interaction between the two of them is just fucking LOADED with history and meaning and emotion, and that spills over into the music as Lindsey does everything he can to put himself at the forefront of the performance and the rest of the band try to keep up with him.
And then it comes down to THAT bass line and THAT guitar solo... John McVie's bass on this song is perhaps the most identifiable moment in the recorded history of Fleetwood Mac and Buckingham's solo - my God, Buckhingham's solo - he may have been a complete cunt at this point in time (and by all accounts, he was) but he was also one of the most talented musicians to ever grace a stage. I would gladly sacrifice a bollock (either one) to be able to play guitar like Lindsey Buckingham.
It's not JUST a musical performance, it's a fucking, living, breathing diorama of the interpersonal relationships within the band - Stevie and Lindsey not knowing if they want to fuck or kill one another at any given moment, John and Chrsitine McVie reacting to everything around them with polite British stoicism, and Mick Fleetwood being... well, Mick Fleetwood. Who the fuck knows what was going on in Mick Fleetwood's head? Certainly not Mick Fleetwood.
By the end of it all, it's as if it's all too much for Stevie to handle and she just retreats into her own private world, holding onto that tambourine as if her life depended on it.
Which is not to suggest she was just some delicate wallflower...
This is "Rhiannon" being perfomed live on BBC's The Old Grey Whistle Test. If you don't get goosebumps watching this video beween 4:50 and 6:10, you have no soul. When Nicks really lets go, it's a sight and sound to behold. She laces every word with so much emotion that at one point (5:34), she's physically shaking. It's beautiful. And that exasperated wail she lets out at 5:54 is the aural equivalent of a post-sex cigarette. And hey, she EARNED that cigarette like a motherfucker.
K... your turn!
I'll start...
This is Fleetwood Mac performing "The Chain" on the L.A leg of their 1982 Mirage Tour (Mirage, for the record, is yet another in a long line of under-rated Mac albums that aren't called Rumours).
There's so much to love about this performance - Lindsey Buckhingham, high as all fuck and dressed like a twat, the many strange and scary faces of Mick Fleetwood, the quiet dignity of Christine McVie as she plays her part in this absurd musical theatre with unflinching professionalism - it's like a snaphot of everything that made the Mac great.
For the most part, Stevie Nicks is a spectator here. But that's not to say she's not at the heart of it all. I always thought of Nicks as Buckhingham's muse. He was always at his best when he was reacting to Stevie - be it her mere existence, her lyrics, her songs, his love for her, his hatred for her, his seeming need to upstage her wherever and whenever possible - and you get a real sense of that here. Every sideways glance, every nod, every smile, every grimace, every minute interaction between the two of them is just fucking LOADED with history and meaning and emotion, and that spills over into the music as Lindsey does everything he can to put himself at the forefront of the performance and the rest of the band try to keep up with him.
And then it comes down to THAT bass line and THAT guitar solo... John McVie's bass on this song is perhaps the most identifiable moment in the recorded history of Fleetwood Mac and Buckingham's solo - my God, Buckhingham's solo - he may have been a complete cunt at this point in time (and by all accounts, he was) but he was also one of the most talented musicians to ever grace a stage. I would gladly sacrifice a bollock (either one) to be able to play guitar like Lindsey Buckingham.
It's not JUST a musical performance, it's a fucking, living, breathing diorama of the interpersonal relationships within the band - Stevie and Lindsey not knowing if they want to fuck or kill one another at any given moment, John and Chrsitine McVie reacting to everything around them with polite British stoicism, and Mick Fleetwood being... well, Mick Fleetwood. Who the fuck knows what was going on in Mick Fleetwood's head? Certainly not Mick Fleetwood.
By the end of it all, it's as if it's all too much for Stevie to handle and she just retreats into her own private world, holding onto that tambourine as if her life depended on it.
Which is not to suggest she was just some delicate wallflower...
This is "Rhiannon" being perfomed live on BBC's The Old Grey Whistle Test. If you don't get goosebumps watching this video beween 4:50 and 6:10, you have no soul. When Nicks really lets go, it's a sight and sound to behold. She laces every word with so much emotion that at one point (5:34), she's physically shaking. It's beautiful. And that exasperated wail she lets out at 5:54 is the aural equivalent of a post-sex cigarette. And hey, she EARNED that cigarette like a motherfucker.
K... your turn!
