What is your favorite bootleg vinyl or cd?

I don't know how I forgot these two initially. They are both STILL essential to this day. Fantastic quality outtakes from the first LP sessions.





This was was "semi-legal" and was released on CD-R by Eric Burdon for a short while. It's the 24-Feb-1969 Royal Albert Hall show in very good quality.

 

Not because they are the "best" but these are my personal favorites because they were the first I ever purchased by my top two bands/artists:

Led Zeppelin: Live At The BBC
Elvis Presley: Behind Closed Doors

I was unaware early on that this type of stuff even existed, so my initial listen was akin to unearthing buried treasure.

JQ

 

Bruce Springsteen - Live In The Promised Land (also Winterland Night) - this one is #1 for me.

also Live At The Bottom Line, The Boston Godfather, Land Of 1,000 Dances, then Piece de Resistance
Bob Dylan - Genuine Live '66, Guitars Kissing and the Contemporary Fix, and Unravelled Tales
The Beatles - The Complete BBC Sessions
The Rolling Stones - From 2120 To 1000 (The Definitive Chess Sessions)
The Clash - Guns Of Brixton, Agora 1979 Definitive Edition
The Beach Boys - Live In Sacramento 1964 both volumes
Buddy Holly - What You Been A-Missin'
The Who - Shakin' All Over (Fillmore East '68)
The Beatles - Another Sessions...Plus

 

I'll agree. We need to have the Esher Demo in NEW IMPROVED FULL DIMENSIONAL STEREO too

 

The possibilities of this topic are overwhelming. One of my many favorites would be Roy Orbison Texas 1987, which was recorded at a club called Rockefeller's in Houston. That night, the concert was professionally recorded and filmed, although it's never been officially released on CD or DVD. The quality of this live show is far superior to "The Final Concert" official CD released by Roy's estate, which leaves much to be desired sonically and is not the final concert. Hopefully Roy Jr. and the Orbison estate can release this performance in the future.

 

Not sure I understand the difference, as far as the artist is concerned, between not buying boots and downloading "huge numbers of
live shows"?? Unless, of course, the downloads were authorized by the artist.

Just sayin...

 

Actually it's from December 1978, but yeah, that's one of my favorites too. I also love the boots from the Passaic, NJ 1978 broadcast.

One of the first boots I bought was highlights from the James Paul McCartney TV special, which made a great little album that I played to death.

 

Three that come to mind:

David Bowie - Live at the Loreley Festival, Germany 1996. An absolute scorcher of a live show with an energetic Bowie and a manic Reeves Gabrel on guitar touring between the Outside and Earthling albums. My favorite live band of his, without a doubt.

Tom Waits - VH1 Storytellers. A really lovely live set with Tom expanding on the origins of many songs, fitting the theme of the show in his atypical way. The full boot includes a couple of songs that for one reason or another had to be retaped for the show, with Tom's wry commentary included. Truly magic.

U2 - Dublin 1992. U2's homecoming show on the Achtung Baby Outside Broadcast tour.

 

Dylan -Blood on the tapes

Oasis - Unplugged.

 

That's a bootleg? I thought it is legit.

 

U2--Zoo Europa (Dublin, 29 August 1993)--way more energy and mayhem than the officially released Australian show. It's brilliant.

 

Any bootleg of Led Zeppelin's 9-29-71 concert.

 

Beatles BackTracks

 

Elvis Presley - American Crown Jewels
Elvis Presley - The Brightest Star On Sunset Boulevard vol.1 & 2

 

The Unsurpassed Masters version of The Beach Boys' "SMiLE" contains my favorite version of "Surf's Up" ever. It's the track-only from the Good Vibrations box set used as an intro, then it goes to the piano-only version. It's brilliant.

 

Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band -
Live at the main point 1975

 

I don't own a lot of bootlegs but my favorite would probably be this one:
Metallica - Am I Evil? - recorded live at the Nuremberg, Germany Monsters of Rock Festival, 1987



I was actually in West Germany as an exchange student at the time this festival took place (there were posters advertising it in train stations and on bus shelters all over the city of Frankfurt, where I was staying). The lineup included Dio, Deep Purple, Helloween, Cinderella, Ratt and Pretty Maids along with Metallica. My buddy Glenn and I were seventeen years old at the time and we were total slobbering Metallica fan-boys, but we hadn't seen them live yet, so naturally we wanted to try and make it to this gig.

As fate would have it, the show was happening the day before our exchange group was due to return to the U.S. We figured if we went to the concert we'd end up too broke, drunk, or lost to make it back to Frankfurt in time to catch our flight home so we decided not to try.

...aaaaaaaaaand needless to say, I've been kicking myself for that decision for almost thirty years now, haha, because even tho I eventually got to see Metallica several times over the next few years, I never did see Dio nor have I ever seen Helloween, Ratt, or Deep Purple!! D'OH!! (reaches back in time, slaps younger self)

At least this boot gives me an idea of what I missed. I found it in a record store in New York City a year or two later.

 

75-02-05. Amazing show. There's better versions out now but this was the first I think.

 

Beware of ABKCO! - it's like having George Harrison sitting in the room playing just for you. It was my very first "unreleased album" too - nothing else has lived up to it.

 

The Rolling Stones - Keep Your Motor Running

 

Pretty much all the 1977 Tour boots but this one is a favorite:



the sound quality is amazing and the atmosphere of the show was perfectly captured. the band was really enjoying themselves this night.

 

Big thumbs up to both. Nice of Zep to play such a historic show on my 8th birthday, too. Thanks, lads.

Love,
Billy

 

Pretty much all of the Rallizes albums are in the grey area as far as what's a boot and what's not. But as far as most are concerned, only the releases on Univive seem to be "official". That one in particular came out as a non-silver cd on the Japanese Rock label, and was then reissued by Phoenix Records, who is a well-known pirate label with good distribution.

See here for more info:

http://www.discogs.com/artist/520482-Les-Rallizes-Denudes

 

The Band, The Last Moving Shadows.

http://theband.hiof.no/albums/boot_last_moving_shadows.html

 

Van Halen - 1976 Gene Simmons demos