Fleetwood Mac was at the top of its game in August 1977 when the band returned to its adopted home in Southern California to play three shows at The Forum in Los Angeles. 'Rumours' had only been out a few weeks when the band left in February to tour the world, returning six months later to play three shows at The Forum for nearly 50,000 fans. 'RUMOURS LIVE' captures the energy and excitement of the band’s opening night at The Forum on August 29, 1977. The nearly 90-minute performance includes live versions of most of the songs from Rumours and Fleetwood Mac, the group’s first multi-platinum #1 album, which came out in 1975. The concert remained unreleased for decades until 2021, when “Gold Dust Woman” from the show was included as a bonus track on Live: Deluxe Edition, Rhino’s expanded version of Fleetwood Mac’s 1980 concert album. The other 17 songs on the collection have never been released before.
The concert’s setlist draws almost exclusively from Fleetwood Mac and Rumours, the first two albums recorded by the band’s latest incarnation: Mick Fleetwood, John McVie, and Christine McVie, and the newest members, Stevie Nicks, and Lindsey Buckingham. The lone nod to Fleetwood Mac’s other nine studio albums is a performance of “Oh Well,” a rock-guitar masterpiece originally released in 1969 and written by the band’s founder, guitarist Peter Green.
Engineer Ken Caillat, who helped record Rumours, also recorded the concert at The Forum using the Record Plant’s mobile recording truck. He captured the band’s impassioned performance at a moment of peak Rumours frenzy, including powerful versions of “Landslide,” “Never Going Back Again,” “Songbird,” and “The Chain.”
