Fleetwood Mac Before Rumours: Bob Welch’s Possible Last Night With the Band

December 15, 1974. Bob Welch played a set at 2200 Bridgeway that the band’s own reissue notes call possibly his last show with Fleetwood Mac. A little more than a year later, a different lineup would begin work on Rumours in the same building.

Tom Donahue introduced the set for KSAN. The band that night was Welch on guitar and vocals, Christine McVie on piano, Bobby Hunt sitting in on Hammond organ and ARP synthesizer, John McVie on bass, and Mick Fleetwood on drums. Their album Heroes Are Hard to Find had just come out. Their former manager was running a fake version of the band on the road under the same name. Welch was already on his way out.

The set leaned on Peter Green’s catalog to open and close: “The Green Manalishi” first, then a closing run through “Black Magic Woman,” “Oh Well,” and “Rattlesnake Shake.” In between, Welch and Christine McVie traded songs from the Bob Welch years — “Angel,” “Bermuda Triangle,” “Sentimental Lady,” and “Hypnotized.” Fourteen tracks in total.

Welch left the band within weeks. Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks joined in early 1975. By February 1976, the new lineup was back at the Record Plant, this time in Studio B, beginning work on what would become Rumours. The sessions there ran past 3,000 hours, though most of what ended up on the finished record was cut later in Los Angeles.

The broadcast was officially released decades later as Live From The Record Plant (December 15, 1974), on nugs.net and in a 2019 vinyl edition. The tape still holds what KSAN put on the air that night.