Dreams At Festival (Mainstream MSBR-71)
US Festival, Glen Helen Regional Park, San Bernardino, CA – September 5th, 1982
Second Hand News, The Chain, Dreams, Oh Well, Rhiannon, Brown Eyes, Eyes Of The World, Gypsy, Love In Store, Never Going Back Again, Landslide, Tusk, Sara, Hold Me
It’s a testament to how big Fleetwood Mac were in the early eighties that they were the highest paid act and were chosen to close the first Us Festival in 1982. The band were bearly a week into their Mirage tour and came from Flordia the previous day to play because they wanted to something big on the west coast. Just like with the Police release, Mainstream brings us a previously undocumented soundboard recording that is very good to excellent.
There is noticeable distortion like in the middle of “Love In Store” where it sounds like the tape is going to break. It is also incomplete, omitting “Don’t Stop”, “You Make Loving Fun”, “I’m So Afraid” and the ending half hour of the set “World Turning”, “Go Your Own Way”, “Sisters Of The Moon”, “Blue Letter” and “Songbird”.
That only about half of the performance is present here is a big shame as it is a great performance accompanied by many helium balloons. After Bill Graham’s introduction they hit the stage and tear into the set. Lindsay Buckingham delivers a vicious and heavy version of “Oh Well”.
Stevie Nicks, who is in great voice, dedicates “Landslide” to the one who organized the whole event. Like with the Police’s set, I really wish Mainstream used the circulating audience source to patch the holes in this tape and present the whole show on two discs. That would have been another essential release
