Fleetwood Mac - Live In London 1968 (CD 2001)

As an example of the earliest Fleetwood Mac incarnation (pre Danny Kirwin) this album does give a fair indication of how the band sounded performing live.As a result it serves its purpose. However the quality of the sound recoding is very low-fi mono with so much background echo that no matter how one fiddles with the graphic equalizer it's quite hard to make out some of the lyrics. I don't know the source of the recording but it sound much more 'bootleg' than I was expecting. Even though the magical guitar picking of Green & Spencer survives the poor recording rather better than the vocals it is still something of a test to sit through the whole album at one go.
Fleetwood Mac in the late 1960s were a totally dedicated blues band - a million miles from the smooth rocker/pop act of later years and many of the songs here have that certain sameness about them as a result. If you love raw electric-blues played by excellent musicians in a rather earthy enviroment, then you will appreciate this alubum but if Fleetwood Mac to you is THE CHAIN or even ALBATROSS, then it's something of a culture shock!