What is your favorite bootleg vinyl or cd?

So many great Beatles & solo collections out there. I don't think anyone has mentioned the McCartney/MacManus demos. Geez there's some good stuff on there.

 

Oh, this could be a very long list indeed, but my favourite bootlegs tend to be those that capture shows I was lucky enough to have attended. (One of the few compensations for being the age that I am is that they date all the way back to 1972!)

The most listened-to in the "I was there" category include:

Pink Floyd - "Earls Court 1973" (audience recording, London, 19 May)
Led Zeppelin - "Earls Court" and "Earls Court II" (audience recorded vinyl boots, London, 24 May 1975)
Led Zeppelin - "Thanks for Eleven Years" (soundboard/audience matrix, Knebworth, 4 August 1979)
Simon Rattle/CBSO - "Mahler Symphony No 7" (audience recording, London, 21 April 1989)
Jeff Beck - "Guitar Superstore" (audience recording, London, 28 July 1990)

The favourites from shows I missed are:

Led Zeppelin - "Live on Blueberry Hill" (audience recording from LA Forum 4 September 1970)
Led Zeppelin - "BBC In Concert" (London 1 April 1971)
Rolling Stones - "Bedspring Symphony" (TAKRL vinyl boot, soundboard, Brussels 17 Oct 1973 and London 9 Sept 1973. I saw the show that the Stones performed in London two days previously, so I was nearly there...)

Best wishes to all from an unusually warm, dry and sunny Cumbria, UK.

Phil

 

or

 

Lots of terrific choices already made in this thread that I concur with.

I'd add:
Tales From The Who
Listen to This Eddie (Led Zep)
Rundown Studios / Rundown Rehearsals (Dylan)
Lonesome Prison Blues - Live at Oregon State Prison (Jerry Garcia)

 

Yellow Matter Custard is the first Beatles bootleg I purchased, which has the tracks they recorded for the BBC. The sound quality is not the best, but it was the first time I heard any of the BBC material and it's always been a favorite of mine.

 

And it's not even called 'Live at the Winterland' (at least mine isn't; I know the same boots go under many different titles). It's 'Live in the Promised Land'. That's what happens when you post in a hurry when what you should be leaving for work in the morning.

 

The Day Tripper from that show in Maine is great

 

All of those boot sources that sound more dynamic and less brittle,harsh and compressed than the same commercially fuzzled with released products.
Thankfully there have been many good sounding official archive stuff in recent times.

 

The Smiths, Never Had No One Ever, Brixton Academy 12/12/86. The vinyl is a double with an'85 Madrid show but the Brixton half is brilliant- amazingly clear for what I was stunned to learn is an audience recording, a stellar performance by the band. The first encore of The Queen Is Dead is visceral, violent- and they end this, their final ever full show, as they began, with Hand In Glove,. Marr is absolutely on fire throughout.

 

Got to go with the first bootleg I ever heard, it was Rush's 1980 St. Louis show that has been bootlegged in a zillion different versions. The version I first heard was a double vinyl set called Xanadu and was from Australia. Fantastic performance and far superior to the official Exit Stage Left IMO.

 

Anyone know the name or date of this one? I'm curious.

 

http://www.zeppelinart.com/browse.asp?dir=1973/1973-07-06+chicago

 

My 1st.bootleg was Pink Floyd's "Barret's Revenge" -

 

I certainly can't say they were "authorized" by the artist. It's more a matter of the artist making no effort to interfere with trading. Richard Thompson is a case in point--he hates it that his old shows are preserved because to him the playing and/or the sound quality aren't up to his standards, but he doesn't object to his fans trading shows. He knows anyone who would collect his live shows already owns all the official releases.

In fact, there was a great deal of "in the wild" material on the RT box set that Free Reed put together several years ago, and so Richard did actually make some money from the fan recordings.

The difference is that the shows are exchanged for free among fans, not burned onto CD-Rs, put into jewel cases, and sold for a lot of money like the bootleggers do.

 

Bob Dylan - The Genuine Bootleg Series

Basically, it's the alternative to the official Bootleg series. Get both sets and you have pretty much 95% of the rare/unreleased Dylan you'll ever need/is worth hearing.

 

here's a sampling

 

Is this the 4 CD box?

http://www.vigotone.com/vigotone/vigotone134-137.htm

Darryl

 

AC/DC-Hammersmith`79
Black Sabbath-Asbury`75
Clash-Deadly Serious
Iron Maiden-Hammersmith`83
Judas Priest-New Mexico`84
Kiss-73/75 Demos
Metallica-No Life Til Leather/Power Metal Demos
Police-Paris 81
Led Zeppelin-Blueberry Hill
U2 -Boston`83
Van Halen-Demos
REM-BBC`84
The Who-Leeds Complete
Nirvana-Radio Sessions

 

Beatles Artifacts(Box) 1 and 2. Nice to have everything in one box in the best(at the time) quality. Sentimental - Ultra Rare Trax(Swinging Pig), my first disc(s). The day-glo cover ones. Blown away from what was on those discs.......

 

Can't pick any individual titles, but the 'Beatles At The Beeb' and 'Ultra Rare Trax' vinyl boots were like a bolt from the blue in the late '80s. It was genuinely exciting waiting for the next ones in the series. Hang on, yes I CAN pick one; 'Broadcasts'. It's the one boot I had that survived 'the event', but that's not the reason I love it so much. Unlike so many boots it's the combination of the sound quality AND the consistently great music that makes it so special for me.

 

( ( ( ( ( ((((((( .

I don't have many, 'cause they are of poor quality mostly, and . . . I don't like 'em in general - they're 'illegal, immoral and unfair'!
But! Sometimes even I can't resist! Here's my fave (top notch sound quality)​

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It's a 10" (mono) single by "Nanker Phelge" (members of The Rolling Stones) - 'Schoolboy Blues' (Earful EAR-100SE,1981)​

 

I thought Phoenix was legit too. Are they using needle drops? They put out good stuff.

 

Beatles Esher demos and George Harrison Beware Of Abkco.

 

They used to be Radioactive Records, and put out numerous bootlegs. Now as Phoenix Records, they seem to be concentrating on illegitimate reissues of Japanese rock from the 70s (mostly since the publication of Japrocksampler). They do look and sound good, but they are in no way official, however originals are super expensive and no other reissues are planned for many of these albums.