Albums that touring acts have completely ignored (never played a song from live)?

One of the weirdest Zeppelin songs ever...I love it.

 

That's one of my favorite albums from Hall & Oates

 

The Moody Blues never played anything from Our Children's Children's album when it came out. They said it was to hard to reproduce live. They might of played one song from it.

 

Oops i forgot about Spanish Castle Magic. Thanks for correcting me on that.

 

They did play "Gypsy" at the time which right off the bat disqualifies that album and then, since it doesn't matter when the songs were played according to the OP, prior to their hiatus in 1974 they had also played "Higher and Higher", "Candle of Life", "Eternity Road", "Out and In" and "Watching and Waiting". That's what I can find evidence of. "Higher and Higher" has been played constantly for the past 10 years as Graeme's feature and "Eternity Road" was played regularly in the 90's, I believe.

 

But, as you mentioned, they did tour that album and played songs from it thus having been represented live by the band. I think the OP specifically disqualified albums that were represented for one tour and then never played again. And even then, again, as you mentioned, one song from it has been played since then even if it involves only Flea. It was played exactly like the album version.

 

OP uses 'subsequent' quite a bit in his post, ie, albums that were forgotten after said tour, hence why I posted that.

 

On the BHN tour in 1997-1998 they played

D'You Know What I Mean
Magic Pie
My Big Mouth
Stand By Me
The Girl In The Dirty Shirt (once!)
Fade In/Out
Don't Go Away
Be Here Now
All Around The World
It's Gettin Better Man

That's almost the entire album

D'You Know What I Mean was played on the 2002 European tour.

Stand By Me was a staple in the set throughout 2000 and 2001

 

One album that meets all the qualifications for this thread and I meant to add earlier is Devo’s 1984 album Shout – which they have most definitely never played anything from live, not even ‘Here to Go’ when it was a minor hit in Australia.

Devo did not tour Shout, and it was released to a critical hatred that continues today. Retired critic Mark Prindle titled the album ‘(expletive)’ in his review, saying:

“(Expletive). In a hilarious world, that would be my entire review. However, due to the inconceivable nature of a band sinking from a 10 to a 2 in a mere six years, I would like to go into more elaborate detail about this album’s shocking lack of goodness. Utilizing the finest in state-of-the-art mid-‘80s synthesizers and big gated (or fake) drums, Devo has crafted a corny cheesy disposable album of faceless stupid commercial synthetic pop (expletive) for 11-year-olds. If you loved The Monkees’ Pool It and The Beach Boys’ Summer In Paradise, dig a hole in your record cabinet because you're about to inject a brand new entry!”
​

Devo did tour the similarly criticised Total Devo (which only charted at #189) and Smooth Noodle Maps (which did not dent the Top 200 at all) and played some songs from them.However, nothing from Shout was played on those tours (contrary to what Prindle says re the live album Now It Can Be Told: Devo at the Palace 12/9/88 as I checked on allmusic and found no Shout song), and since reuniting for concert tours in 1995 Devo have completely disowned their three mid- to late-1980s albums and never played anything from them.

 

Shout wasn't toured as the album was an utter disaster. Their label hated it, the critics hated it and I daresay that a lot of long term fans hated it as well. It was allegedly going to have a tour similar to the previous Oh, No! It's Devo tour with the video backdrop but it was never to be. How the songs would've been performed live would be interesting given that pretty much the entire album was composed and performed on the Fairlight synthesiser. The remix of Here To Go was performed at a one-off concert in Pasadena in March 1991. A section of Shout was used in the Somewhere With Devo Suite that was performed on the Total Devo and Smooth Noodle Maps tours. Devo has pretty much wiped their history of the Enigma albums given the label basically ruined what was left of their career at that stage. The Total Devo tour only went through small clubs and the European Smooth Noodle Maps tour was cut short due to poor sales.

Thankfully the "reunion" tours that followed from the mid-late 90s onwards went a long way to restoring Devo's legacy. Friends of mine that used to love taking the piss out of me for my Devo obsession came away very impressed after seeing them live in Australia in 2008 and 2012, not believing that a bunch of guys in or approaching their 60s could put on such a high energy performance.

 

I have always assumed the reason Shout failed so badly commercially – reaching only #83 on Billboard as against #47 for Oh, No! It’s Devo – was that most long-term fans hated it (which I was sure of before I wrote my first post), but it surprises me that Shout was hated by Warner Brothers since at the time it seemed from what Prindle said that it was effectively an effort to adapt Devo’s sound to the commercial sound of the middle 1980s.

 

I have an interview somewhere that Jerry did a few years later and he was scathing of WB's handling of the album. He said that there was a bit of a regime change at the label around the time of Shout's release and that the new person in charge allegedly instructed his staff that he wanted no-one doing any work to promote the album. The album sunk without a trace and I still think is a crystalline example of how to commit career suicide. The 12" EP for Here to Go became a huge club hit in Australia with import dance stores bringing the EP in from the States. Even when Molly Meldrum gave it a huge plug on Countdown one night, WEA still took another twelve months or more to release it locally, once again literally without any promotion. Despite that it still managed to hit #40 on the national charts and went as high as #10 in Melbourne. WEA did make a compilation video for the song that has been played on the rage Devo specials but not anywhere outside of that. I can see what they were trying to achieve with Shout but it's execution was just dire.

 

To flip this around the other way - of ignored albums that need a touring act!

Seventh Star (1986)
DEP Session (1996)
Fused (2005)

Needs Tony Iommi and Glenn Hughes to finally play live together properly. We'll ignore the car crash of the Seventh Star tour (about 7 shows was it?) before Hughes was replaced by Ray Gillen.

 

Certainly after they became famous Pantera completely disowned their 1980s albums and they are not found on their site nor ever reissued, though I recall reading that Power Metal’s ‘Over and Out’ was apparently still played in 1990 or even 1991 when Phil, Darrell, Vinnie and Rex were completely reinventing themselves.

In any case, Pantera did tour extensively for those first four albums and almost certainly performed songs from all of them, though so far as I am aware setlist data are nonexistent.

This has been answered a bit already, but according to ‘Rocks Off’ (check #93 to #104):

1. ‘Yesterday’s Papers’ was performed in 1967
2. ‘Connection’ and ‘She Smiled Sweetly’ were performed in 1967 and at some later dates
3. the following songs were never played live:
   1. ‘My Obsession’
   2. ‘Back Street Girl’
   3. ‘Cool Calm And Collected’
   4. ‘All Sold Out’
   5. ‘Please Go Home’
   6. ‘Who’s Been Sleeping Here?’
   7. ‘Complicated’
   8. ‘Miss Amanda Jones’
   9. ’Something Happened To Me Yesterday’

It might be noted that there are quite a few other Stones tracks from 1966 or 1967 that are better-known than most on Between the Buttons yet were never played live either. For instance neither side of the double A-side single ‘Dandelion’/‘We Love You’ was ever performed live, nor were any of the eight tracks on the second side of Aftermath (UK), viz:

1. ‘Flight 505’
2. ‘High and Dry’
3. ‘Out of Time’ (yet this was a big hit and remains occasionally played on classic rock radio)
4. ‘It’s Not Easy’
5. ‘I Am Waiting’
6. ‘Take It or Leave It’
7. ‘Think’
8. ‘What To Do’

 

Captain Beefheart never toured "Bluejeans & Moonbeams" and didn't include any songs from it in the subsequent years. He also never toured his last album "Ice Cream for Crow", even though the lyrics for "Hey Garland I Dig Your Tweed Coat" were recited live prior to its release.

To define Kate Bush as a touring artist would be a stretch, but after the "Before the Dawn" shows in 2014, "The Dreaming" and "The Sensual World" remain the only albums from which she has never played anything live.

 

That was the album I was thinking of too - altho not sure about haven't we lost enough - can't rememember hearing it live or not

 

Pink Floyd - The Piper At The Gates Of Dawn.

For me it's quite painful that in 1966-1967 they mostly played only 20-30 minute versions of Interstellar Overdrive, ignoring the other songs. And in 1968 - 1969, for a short time, they played "Flaming" with Dave on vocals. But since 1969 - almost never played anything (except for "Astronomy Domine").

 

I would love to see this happen. Geezer and Ozzy don't want to do Black Sabbath anymore, so the time is now! I hope Tony stays healthy enough to continue to tour without the Black Sabbath name.

 

Paul McCartney:

Pipes of Peace
Liverpool Sound Collage

As the Fireman:
Strawberries Oceans Ships Forest

 

They also played "My Big Mouth" on their final 2009 tour.

 

They also played Pow.R. Toch in 68-69, but your point is still valid. I think the songs really needed Syd to bring them vocally to life. A shame that the 67 shows did not include more album cuts.

 

Not sure if Prindle had magical powers, but comparing Shout to a Monkees album still 3 years away from being released is.... Something.

 

So if they didn't play Piper songs, what did PF play live with Syd?

 

They played 20-30 minute version of "Interstellar Overdrive" and sometimes - "Astronomy Domine". For me - the most boring tracks on the album along with "Pow R Toch".

 

Also one more painful example - early albus of The Mothers Of Invention. "We're only in it for money" could have been a great live show, but Zappa & friends mostly played some non-album stuff. And audience was not really happy with it)