One of Fleetwood Mac’s biggest hits is getting the live treatment. The live version of “Go Your Own Way” takes listeners inside The Forum in Los Angeles where their upcoming album, RUMOURS LIVE, was recorded. The song’s sole writer, Lindsey Buckingham, takes lead vocals while Christine McVie and Stevie Nicks provide solid background harmonies alongside pulsing drums and guitar. With the opening sound of cheers to the clips of fans clapping along, the performance captures Fleetwood Mac’s electric sound that made them beloved around the world.
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“Go Your Own Way” is the latest release off RUMOURS LIVE, which was recorded during the band’s three-night stay at The Forum in Los Angeles in August 1977. Released in February 1977, Rumours topped the charts in multiple countries, including the Billboard 200 in the U.S., and was named Album of the Year at the 1978 Grammy Awards. It’s one of the best-selling albums of all time, with a whopping 40 million copies sold worldwide.
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“Go Your Own Way” was released as the album’s lead single in 1976 and was the band’s first to reach the Top 10 hit on the Billboard Hot 100. In addition to “Go Your Own Way,” the album spawned other classic hits like “The Chain,” “You Make Loving Fun” and “Songbird.” Outside of “Gold Dust Woman,” which was released digitally for the first time in 2021, this marks the first time all the other recordings from the monumental show have been released to the public.
“The songs are familiar: ‘Dreams,’ ‘Go Your Own Way,’ ‘Say You Love Me,’ ‘Over My Head,’ and on and on,” Fleetwood Mac historian Sam Graham writes in the liner notes. “But most of these live versions are more muscular, more ferocious, than the album recordings, driven by the powerhouse Fleetwood-John McVie rhythm section and Buckingham’s febrile guitar playing; and instead of a rote recital of the hits, the group stretches out in concert, as songs like ‘Rhiannon,’ ‘World Turning,’ and ‘I’m So Afraid’ blossom into exuberant tours de force onstage.”
RUMOURS LIVE features 18 songs across two LPs. It’s set to drop on September 8.
Photo by Daniel Petty/The Denver Post via Getty Images
