Kevin's Watch

Husker Du : the Living End

The second best live album(behind The Who Live at Leeds)has to be The Allman Brothers Live at Fillmore East.

Lots of great suggestions in this old thread!

The following are my favorite live albums:
The Who - Live At Leeds
Deep Purple - Made In Japan (awesome, just AWESOME!!! )
Rush - Exit...Stage Left
Alice In Chains - MTV Unplugged
Jimi Hendrix - Band Of Gypsies

In general I like live albums, especially if they actually sound live. Sometimes there are so many studio overdubs that there's little left of the original live performance. That bothered me quite a bit when I first found out that it happens, but over time I stopped worrying about that.

Some artists have only ever put on record what they played live, and in the 70s and 80s there was a period where a small number of bands would put a note on their albums saying "No Overdubs". Ones that I can remember are Siouxsie and the Banshees, Dire Straits, Deep Purple, and probably others.

Some artists take parts of other performances and stitch them together, but don't otherwise overdub - Queen, Frank Zappa, Led Zeppelin, etc.

Then there are those that just overdub the hell out of performances, which includes many classic live albums - Frampton Comes Alive, Kiss Live, It's Alive (The Ramones) - all have at some point been revealed to be full of overdubs, and in some cases the artists still try to claim that the albums have no overdubs.

There's probably another category, the combination of live and studio that the Grateful Dead or Frank Zappa were probably the pioneers of, mixing live and studio tracks together.

Anyway, analysis aside, I like to hear live albums that are "warts and all", with all the mistakes, bum notes and anything that make them feel live rather than studio representations of a gig.

I've enjoyed the hell out of The Name Of This Band Is Talking Heads and Stop Making Sense over the years; two of my favourite albums and big reasons for why I can appreciate the appeal of the live album ..

Hot August Night - Neil Diamond. I just gave this a re-listen, and man it's a good one.

Three of my favs:

Johnny Cash - At Folsom Prison
Scorpions - World Wide Live
Pink Floyd - P*U*L*S*E*

Dixie Dregs Bring 'Em Back Alive is better than any of the studio versions of those songs.

Bela Fleck Live at the Quick is awesome for all the improv, variations, and guest musicians.

All the Rush live albums are good up through Snakes and Arrows Live, except for Rush in Rio, which was amazing but flawed by production.

Zarathustra wrote:All the Rush live albums are good up through Snakes and Arrows Live, except for Rush in Rio, which was amazing but flawed by production.

I actually like that one a lot - it has more of a live feel to it than many of their other albums. It wasn't recorded well, that's for sure, but to me that's what makes a live album feel live - not too much screwing around with it and leaving it raw.

michaelm wrote:

Zarathustra wrote:All the Rush live albums are good up through Snakes and Arrows Live, except for Rush in Rio, which was amazing but flawed by production.

I actually like that one a lot - it has more of a live feel to it than many of their other albums. It wasn't recorded well, that's for sure, but to me that's what makes a live album feel live - not too much screwing around with it and leaving it raw.

I know what you mean, I don't like overdubs and fakery. I love the sense of space on a live record, the booming echoes, etc. But there's a difference between "raw" (which I don't really think is appropriate for a band like Rush) and poor production (which isn't appropriate for any band). The recording actually had mistakes that didn't reflect the sound of the show, rather than an untouched rawness. In the liner notes Neil sort of apologizes for this, citing primitive recording equipment and no soundcheck on the day of the show. From what I can remember (it's been a while) the vocal was mixed way too low, the crowd way too high. The other instruments sound distant, too, like standing in the hallway buying a beer at the stadium. Also, the audio codec is in that in-between stage of compressed, crappy surround, before the hi-res Blu-ray codecs were invented. I'd prefer just a straight PCM stereo mix of the older recordings(uncompressed).

But I absolutely loved that tour. One of my favorite Rush memories.

Zarathustra wrote:In the liner notes Neil sort of apologizes for this, citing primitive recording equipment and no sound check on the day of the show. From what I can remember (it's been a while) the vocal was mixed way too low, the crowd way too high. The other instruments sound distant, too, like standing in the hallway buying a beer at the stadium

I'll have to pull that out and give it a play, but I don't really remember it that way. I remember those liner notes, and the feel of the album is far from the digital live recordings that most bands have made in the past decade and more, but to me that is a plus.

The liner notes have something about how long it took to mix the album and I can see what that would be the case if it came straight to a primitive desk to a multitrack recording, but I don't remember anything about what they recorded to - I would assume they had some kind of digital capture there or I don't think they would have been able to achieve what they did.

I definitely have to listen again though as I don't really remember it being a bad mix at all, or that the sound is in any way diminished or narrowed. Maybe I'm remembering wrong, but I know I was really surprised at the sound when I first heard it considering how much criticism there was of it.

dlbpharmd wrote:Johnny Cash - At Folsom Prison
Scorpions - World Wide Live

Totally agree on the Johnny Cash one. It's rougher and wilder than the also great San Quentin.

Never liked the Scorpiuons though. Never actually liked any music from Germany in English. But WWL had that one magic moment any live album needs: when the audience takes over and sings Holiday.

I like live albums that totally catch the spirit of a show and make me feel I'm there, right in the audience. I don't like live albums you can tell they've been cut together from different shows.

Some songs surpass the studio versions on live albums. "We're The Roadcrew" by Motörhead (No Sleep Till Hammersmith) for example.

I was gonna mention
"Black Diamond", "Let Me Go Rock'n'Roll", "Love Gun" and "God of Thunder" (KISS - Alive & Alive II) as well, but those live albums are probably more studio albums than all KISS studio albums together.

Cord Hurn wrote:Deep Purple - Made In Japan (awesome, just AWESOME!!! )

I just scanned down and noticed this one - incredible album, and I think this is one that has no overdubs or fixes too. There are mistakes for sure (just listen to the guitar solo on Highway Star), but there are some great live versions of these tracks from a band that is on fire!

I think the difference is that some bands are just great live, and others aren't. There are a few artists that I'd prefer buying a live version of their stuff, and some that I'd prefer over the studio version. Tom Waits in the early days was better than the recorded. Robyn Hitchcock is amazing live, and very few of his studio albums reflected that, at least into the 80s. The Eels are also very good live, but their studio albums are nothing to hold up your nose to. They Might Be Giants is also another band the same can be said for.

I just get frustrated when I buy a live album and it sounds just like the album version. I think as much as Queen was said to be a great band live, in all of the live recordings I have heard of them, they are too close to the album version. If I'm there, it's a different matter, and I can stand to have it sound like the album to some degree, but the recording doesn't impress me unless there are bigger differences.
Then again, covers of songs from other artists strike me much the same way. And I think essentially live albums should be seen as cover versions by the band of their material. Reinterpretations are what a good cover or live album should be.

Nobody's mentioned Harry Chapin's "Greatest Stories Live"? That's a great album.

Grant Hart - Ecce Homo

his 2nd band (after Husker Du) was Nova Mob and they were supposed to do a live recording, but they broke up right before the date.

so Grant went in alone and did an acoustic show. great stuff.