Shake the Cage Tour

The Shake the Cage Tour by the Anglo-American rock group Fleetwood Mac began on September 30, 1987, in Kansas City, Missouri, and ended on June 28, 1988, in Manchester, England. It was their first tour since 1974 without Lindsey Buckingham, who left the band in August 1987.

History

Although the album Tango in the Night included Lindsey Buckingham, the guitarist quit at a band meeting to discuss the tour. "We'd signed the contracts," Stevie Nicks noted. "We couldn't call in and say, 'Oh, we can't do the tour.' We had to do it, or Fleetwood Mac would have been sued forever."

Buckingham was replaced by rockabilly singer and guitarist Billy Burnette and lead guitarist and session musician Rick Vito. The former contributed to Mick Fleetwood's solo album I'm Not Me, as a member of Mick Fleetwood's Zoo. Recently recovered from cocaine addiction, Nicks was prescribed a heavy duty tranquilizer, to which she became addicted until the mid 1990s.

The band played at the Rock am Ring Festival in Nürburg, West Germany, on June 4, 1988. The crowd in attendance was 80.000.

This tour was filmed during the San Francisco shows (December 12–13) and released on VHS as Fleetwood Mac: Tango in the Night. Cruzados and The Adventures were the opening act of the tour.