Search - Fleetwood Mac :: Madison Blues

Essential For Fans of Mac

M. McDonald | K.C.-USA | 08/07/2005

(5 out of 5 stars)

"This is Green,Kirwan,Spencer,and Christine material. It is especially important for fans of Danny and Jeremy. Buy it and treasure it."

Not really worth the money

kireviewer | Sunnyvale, Ca United States | 06/30/2005

(2 out of 5 stars)

"This is a three disc set: 2CD's and 1 interview DVD. The discs come in sealed paper enevelopes that you have to rip open. There is an 8 page booklet that gives some background what the group was up to and some history of the recordings. It comes in a cardboard box, the size of the CD's.



The DVD is an hour and 20 minute interview of Jeremy Spencer from 2002. It basically covers his whole life and isn't that interesting. There are a few notable insights (like Peter Green wanted to stick to basic blues and Spencer wasn't on Then Play On).



The CD's come from the Fleetwood Mac era of Christine McVie, Danny Kirwan and Jeremy Spencer.



The first CD is 72 minutes long and is a collection of studio and live tracks. The first 4 tracks are studio recordings of Christine McVie's band when she was a solo artist going under her maiden name Christine Perfect. They are pretty good and might be the best thing on this whole boxset. However, they don't sound complete, like they were not quite finished for release on a album. The songs were not included on her solo album.



The next set of songs are "live studio" recordings of Fleetwood Mac, when Christine McVie was not quite an official member of the band. They are basically studio outtakes from Kiln House. There are alternative versions of Tell Me All the Things You Do and other songs. The sound quality is fairly good.



The remainder of the first disc is various live performances from Fleetwood Mac. There are some very good and interesting live tracks on the last half of this CD. There is a 6 minute Tell Me and an 8 minute Station Man. The sound quality is good on these live tracks.



The second CD is a complete 56 minute live performance. The sound quality is borderline. It is not horrible like some live CD's (Black Sabbath, Live at Last; INXS, Live Baby Live; Simple Minds, City of Light; Hawkwind, Early Daze; King Crimson, Epitath; or Yes, Beyond and Before). But, the sound quality is bad enough that you wouldn't want to listen to this repeatedly.



The performance on the second CD has some very good sections, and some not so good. There is some good jamming. There are some bad songs. There is a section where Jeremy Spencer imitates Elvis Presley and then goes into a Presley monolog.



Danny Kirwan could be a good song writer, but he could also writes some horrible pop tunes. Purple Dancer, which is on both the first and second CD is probably the worst song he ever wrote. On the second CD, they do an 8 minute version of the song. It is excrutiating getting through the singing part of the song, but then the group breaks out into some of the best jamming the band has ever done."