(Credits: Far Out / Press)
Sat 24 January 2026 17:31, UK
Performing live is second nature to Lindsey Buckingham, who feels at home when he’s standing up on a stage entertaining a crowded room filled with thousands of fans.
With Fleetwood Mac, Buckingham suddenly found himself in the limelight and rose to the occasion, supplying songs that made them a worldwide phenomenon. Despite not being an original member, he was part of the set-up, on and off, for over 40 years, providing an input that is impossible to delete from history.
Prior to joining the band with his partner-in-crime Stevie Nicks, the duo had already released their debut album, Buckingham Nicks. While it now has cult classic status, it failed to achieve commercial success, leaving the pair in an uncomfortable position until Mick Fleetwood heard it and recruited them for Fleetwood Mac.
Even when their future looked perilous, Buckingham and Nicks continued writing, unbeknownst to them that this litany of material they had concocted would end up appearing on Fleetwood Mac’s tenth album.
Their songwriting contributions to this record may not have seemed significant at the time, but they were vital in establishing the band’s dynamics in the future. It immediately showed that neither Nicks nor Buckingham was a secondary member of the band because they were new to the equation, and placed everybody on a level playing field.
Lindsey Buckingham in 2012. (Credits: Far Out / Steve Proctor)
It also helped that their contributions were of a supremely high quality, which was too good to ignore. One of those tracks in question is ‘I’m So Afraid’, a Buckingham composition. While it’s a song that he holds dear to his heart, it’s also one that he never enjoyed performing in a live setting.
Much to Buckingham’s frustration, it became a fan favourite at their live shows, which the band performed over 750 times. Yet, every time he played it, Buckingham was focusing too hard on not messing up to get lost in the moment. Unlike other songs in their repertoire, the difficulty arose from the highly technical aspects of ‘I’m So Afraid’ rather than any deep lyrical content, which could have tugged on his heartstrings.
The complex creation was a labour of love for Buckingham. While it came to Fleetwood Mac ready-made, it was a four-year process to get ‘I’m So Afraid’ to that stage. Fleetwood praised the track in his autobiography and claimed: “The harmony of the guitar parts so in tune they were a virtual orchestra unto themselves.”
During a discussion with Malcolm Gerrie in front of a live studio audience broadcast on Sky Arts, Buckingham fielded a question from a fan keen to know about the Fleetwood Mac song that’s hardest to play. In response, the guitarist revealed: “Well there’s one we do, called ‘I’m So Afraid’, it’s not that it’s difficult but it’s very taxing on a nightly basis because it’s got this very long solo that I have to do every night.”
Although ‘I’m So Afraid’, to this day, doesn’t come easily to perform for Buckingham, he’s never shied away from the task, unlike many artists in his position would. Even though Fleetwood Mac is no more, and Buckingham is out on his own these days, ‘I’m So Afraid’ remains a mainstay of his sets as recently as his last tour in 2022, suggesting it’s a personal favourite.
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