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Evolone @beehaw.org

What is your favorite LIVE album?

Share your favorite live records with us!

Here are some questions for discussion:

What performances really stand out for you? What is unique about the way the band performs live? What draws you to the live performance? Do you prefer a live version of a song over the recording? Why?

90 comments

  • Genesis’ Seconds Out is my favorite live album of all time. For people only familiar with the Phil Collins era of the band, it’s a perfect gateway to their brilliant past. Phil treats the Gabriel vocals with love and affection and really brings his all. Steve Hackett gives possibly some of his strongest work with the band. And the drum interplay between Collins and Chester Thompson (and, on one track, Bill Bruford) is :chef’s kiss:

    Zappa/Mothers Just Another Band from LA showcases one of my favorite eras of the band, cut tragically short. The best, most complete rendition of Billy the Mountain until the release of the Carnegie Hall show

    • Came here to recommend Seconds Out.

      That user name couldn't really recommend anything else though 😉

      Genesis Live was a bit clunky.

      • TBH I feel like they really hit their stride performing in 1975-76. The Trick/Wind tours had a loose, jammy feel to them that’s irresistible.

  • Rush - Snakes and Arrows Live 2007. It was a perfect set list. Plus, the cinematography of the concert DVD was beautifully done.

  • Paris by Supertramp. The performances, recording quality and song selection are all top notch.

  • Tyler Childers Live on Red Barn Radio.

    His music already has a lot of heart and emotion in the studio and it's even better in these live recordings, also excellent set list.

  • Frank Zappa's "You Can't Do That On Stage Anymore: Vol 2 is probably my favorite. At least for commercially released live albums. Choosing someone like Zappa or the Grateful Dead is somewhat cheating as an answer to this question though because they toured relentlessly and recorded all of their shows. So you have thousands of live recordings to choose from.

  • I really love A Show of Hands by Rush. It's one of my favorite of their eras, though I feel like the "synth era" isn't as universally loved by fans

  • AC/DC - if you want blood - best live album of all time, peak Bon Scott era.

    Motorhead - No sleep till hammersmith - with the classic line up and some of their best tunes played at deafening volume.

  • Sonata Arctica - Songs of Silence, Live in Tokyo

    Listening to the studio versions of these songs is weird for me now. It is one of the few live albums I've listened to where the audience adds something.

  • For probably 99% of the music I listen to, I vastly prefer live over recordings and live recording over studio. Big band jazz is my oldest love, trad (instrumental folk) my deepest, opera my newest. They're all genres centred around live performance. It's the way music has been for most of human history, people playing for themselves and other people. Studio effects can be interesting but they don't have the same immediacy. While it may be a shared endeavour for the musicians and producers, we as an audience can only give them our money, not our energy.

    Top is (Duke) Ellington at Newport, from the 1956 Newport Jazz Festival. Superbly talented geniuses who were on fire and we're so lucky it was recorded. The gem amongst gems is the sequence of Diminuendo in Blue and Crescendo in Blue with an Interlude from Paul Gonsalves. Both group and solo work are excellent, everyone on top of their game. Starts out mellow, and then builds, and builds, and builds. Listen to the crowd loving it. They know they're experiencing something truly special. https://piped.simpleprivacy.fr/watch?v=wIX7fnYANak

    Lau Live Lau (word for a particular quality of light in Orkney) is a Scottish & English experimental trad band who are phenomenal live, especially in tunes like this where they build and build the energy. They crank the musical tension and when they let it go, it's visceral. Being in the room and feeling the vibrations is the best, but this album (good headphones mandatory) will do. https://piped.simpleprivacy.fr/watch?v=hoEYutpgnuQ

    That said, the last time I heard them play was a double bill with a young Danish trio called Dreamers' Circus and they out-Lau'ed Lau.

    Trad music is great like that.

    More mainstream, I'm also very fond of The Allman Brothers Band at Filmore East.

  • There's a couple that I really enjoy:

    • Vulfpeck - Live at Madison Square Garden: I was never really one for live albums, more often than not I found it tough immersing myself in the music and the performance so I (wrongfully) write them off. But this album flipped a switch in my brain I didn't even know I had, I could physically feel the energy from the band and the crowd, it's seriously infectious! every single one of the musicians on stage brought their absolute A game, to the point where there's several songs on the live album that I prefer over the studio versions (e.g. Funky Duck, Christmas in LA, 1612, Cory Wong)
    • LCD Soundsystem - the long goodbye: I got into LCD Soundsystem a little after their touring hiatus, so I'd always listen to this one sad that I probably won't be able to go to one of their live performances in the foreseeable future (I did get to see them at Re:Set though which was great!). Hearing the crowd go crazy during the drop in dance yrself clean is a religious experience! and all my friends is a song that's always made me pretty emotional, so hearing it in a live setting always gets me going lol. Absolutely recommend this one to anyone who's even remotely into their music.

  • Leprous' Live at Rockefeller Music Hall. The whole thing is great but it's mostly because they did this as the last song of the concert, somehow. The swansong of a very different, darker, more brutal era for the band. The guy doing the harsh vocals here, Ishan, he isn't even part of the band, really. But here he is. I'm not even a fan of black metal with vocals this harsh, usually, but godDAMN the energy is infectious. Better than the studio recording because the showmanship of doing it right at the end like this is so damn impressive.

  • Daft Punk's "Alive 2007" is still one of the best live shows I've ever heard.

90 comments