What are the essential Camel live Albums?

I know there are a lot. What live albums are a must?
Thank you

 

While not an "album", I recommend the DVD "Moondances".if you are a fan of the albums Moonmadness and Raindances. The live tracks from Raindances are particularly good and Mel Collins kills it on the sax.

I haven't watched it in a while but I remember the Moonmadness footage being cropped to 16:9 from 4:3 and being rather dark, but its well worth watching.

 

A Live Record is great. My personal favourite is Never Let Go. Registration from Dust and Dreams Tour. Very nice versions of classic tracks on that one. I might be a bit hissed though. It's the tour on which I discovered Camel.

 

I'm intrigued as to what this means... typo? Great band! I only know A Live Record (and have quite a few studio albums) but that one is superb.

 

auto correct failure. Meant biased.

 

My personal favorites are the expanded Pressure Points and A Live Record. My favorite videos are the Rain Dances era BBC Sight and Sound concert and Pressure Points again.

 

The live tracks on Lunar Sea: An Anthology 1973-1985
Lunar Sea [live] from Moonmadess (bonus track)
West Berlin [live] from Pressure Points
Is this correct?

 

The Paris Collection is absolutely essential. It has a great sound and mix and includes 13 minutes of the best music from Dust and Dreams, played better, making that studio album unnecessary. Guy LeBlanc is a good keyboardist and fine singer. Colin's vocals are also good here, dare I say better than Andy's often are. Unfortunately it is only a single disk and their latest album (Rajaz) only gets a single track, and not the amazing Three Wishes, unfortunately.

I also enjoy the live The On The Road '81 Official Bootleg album that includes most of the Nude album (unfortunately omitting Lies). The sound is good and it includes Kit Watkins on keys, who for my money, is the best keyboardist Camel ever had, and I say that as a huge Pete Bardens fan. FYI, the live bonus track Ice on the I Can See Your House From Here is from this same show and is excellent.

I have mixed feelings about the A Live Record that most fans love. The remaster includes some poorly recorded (2 channel) songs mixed in with the multi-tracked original songs making for a jarring listening experience. Some of the sax added to the older songs seems out of place, though It works well with the '77 material. On the plus side you get Richard Sinclair's vocal on some Moonmadness tracks and this is a definite improvement over their studio counterparts. So a good album to get, but not a great classic.

Pressure Points is pretty good too. The songs from Stationary Traveler sound a bit less sterile in this live environment, but the older songs are all done better on earlier albums -both live and studio.

Never Let Go is one is one I can't recommend because disk 2 is the entire Dust and Dreams album live -the album is a real slog and my least favorite Camel album. It also has some of the weakest drum and keyboard sounds found on any live Camel album. Still, the songs on disk one are well chosen and played competently, just no standout performances IMO.

Coming Of Age is another I don't rate as "essential". Harbor of Tears is a stronger album than Dust and Dreams, but I still am only fond of about half the content. I also don't rate this band as highly as the Rajaz Tour band.

On The Road '82 suffers from poor sound (sounds like a 2-channel board recording) and it chronicles the weak A Single Factor album. Some good performances by a strong band line-up let down by the recording quality.

The BBC recordings included in The Gods of Light CD are raw, energetic and definitely worth hearing. This is the original line-up at their best.

 

I think the Lunar Sea on the Anthology is from "A Live Record". It's too long short to be the bonus track from the 2002 Moonmadness remaster. The live West Berlin is from Pressure Points.

 

There is also a version of "Summer Lightning" from this concert available on the Rainbow's End compilation. It's killer!

 

Make sure to pick up the Deluxe 2cd version of Moonmadness. It includes a killer concert from 1976.

 

Yes, I have this to. It’s excellent!