Live Albums ? --- I Can Live Without Them

I'm with the OP on this one .. at least where Rock and Pop music are concerned. Jazz is a different thing.
There are the classics mentioned;
Leeds, Yada-Yada , Made in Japan..
.. loved them in the day but then I found out most are slathered with studio overdubs and then I thought, well in that case, why not just record the whole thing in the studio and just overdub the audience on top .. better yet, why bother adding noise to a recording - voilà ! .. Studio. Period. If I want live I'll go see the show, otherwise I prefer records to sound like the artist took full advantage of the studio technology (particularly that of the period from the 1950s through mid-1970s) - kind of the whole point of making records and why I like the way they sound.

 

I'm not a huge fan of live albums, but the two "quasi-official" Velvet Underground live albums, Live at Max's Kansas City and 1969: The Velvet Underground Live have always been essential listening. They are really the only two live albums that have ever meant anything to me.

 

Just about all I listen to is live music. There are so many incredible live albums now that IMHO blow away the studio versions I rarely listen to studio and then only on vinyl. And that does not even include the incredible number of excellent bootlegs now available with the advent of downloading.

 

AMEN ! Live at the Narrows is excellent. I saw her with the same band about a year and a half ago in an intimate venue, and she & band performed great.

 

Not a fan of live albums at all. A couple of exceptions - Velvet Underground 1969. Bill Evans at The Village Vanguard.

 

I see a few mentions of ' Velvet Underground - 1969 ' and I have to admit that one still gets me.

 

I am a Live album fan, yet I evaluate them on each one's individual merits. Almost every one has been fixed to some degree afterwards.

Concert For George sets the bar high IMO.
Also Joe Bonamassa's Tour de Force (4) volume set Live in London is superb....

 

I've always loved live albums, and still play a lot of them. I guess I really got into recorded live music with Lynyrd Skynyrd's One More From the Road, which I played to death as a teenager, and is still a favourite. Others that I play regularly:

LZ - How the West was Won
Jackson Browne - Live in Japan and Solo Acoustic Vol. 1
Eagles - Hell Freezes Over
Bob Marley & The Wailers - Live
Biffy Clyro - Revolutions Live at Wembley
U2 - Under a Blood Red Sky
Nils Lofgren - Acoustic Live
Maze - Live in New Orleans
Opeth - The Roundhouse Tapes
Joe Bonamassa - Live from Nowhere in Particular
Free - Live

And loads more.

 

"Sinatra Live at the Sands" and Joe Cocker's "Mad Dogs & Englishmen" are ones that I like. I don't like live albums that overdo the audience noise. I also think most rock bands don't necessarily come across well on live albums (Joe was more of a big band concept than a small rock band).

 

It's not like I don't like live jazz (or live albums in other genres), I just usually prefer studio albums, and often when it comes to live albums with unique tunes, I often wish there were a studio version of it as well (or instead).

A couple exceptions though--I really love Jean-Luc Ponty's 1979 Live album--that might be my favorite Ponty album overall, a couple of my favorite Mangione albums are Land of Make Believe and Tarantella (though I'd still rank a few studio albums above them), and there are some live Michael Brecker/Mike Stern recordings (unfortunately not officially released) that I like more than their studio counterparts.

 

I guess it depends for me. Live albums can certainly be de trop - Eagles Live, Styx Caught in the Act, Supertramp Paris all immediately come to mind - and were often a stop gap between studio records but there are live albums that I see as essential parts of the canon. Van Morrison's It's Too Late To Stop Now is top three Van for me. It is just a stellar performance and captures everything I love Morrison for. Bob Dylan/The Band's Before The Flood features some of the most rollicking music ever captured on tape. The Talking Heads The Name of This Band Is Talking Heads especially the 1980-81 platter adds a looseness that is not on the studio work. I'll take the live version of "Houses in Motion" over the studio version all day. Bob Seger's career may have been saved by Live Bullet...and so it goes. I also see a lot of concerts and view live music as almost life blood so maybe that is part of it too.

 

Definitely that. KISS' Alive II is an example where the crowd noise really bugged me. Cheap Trick's At Budokan, too.

 

Gotcha.

One day you might change your mind, and feel like starting another thread about re-discovering live albums.

 

Oh ! That could easily happen given the right circumstances.

 

Also, as a Zappa fan a lot of live stuff is indispensible, even if I'd like it even better if all of those variations on the tunes had been done in the studio instead.

 

King Crimson says hello. These guys and Allman Brothers excelled live.

Let's not forget Johnny Cash's Folsom Prison album. Some songs are more vibrant and atmospheric when it comes to live performances.

 

Hmm...soft spot for this one too. Maybe I'll request a thread cancellation.

 

Just about every track on Bob Seger's Live Bullet is better than the studio cut.

But that kind of live album is as rare as hen's teeth.

 

Deep Purple- Made in Japan has nearly ruined me on live albums. The improvisation actually goes somewhere and there’s no “noodling” to my ears. Nothing else I have heard really compares.

 

No need bro! Keep it rollin !

 

Made in Japan has no overdubs.

 

Why?

 

Too many are redone in a studio. Frampton Comes Alive was reworked hard.

 

I dont listen to tons of live albums, but I enjoy the ones I do.

The Dylan '66 set, and the Rolling Thunder Review set were both massive in scope and enjoyability.

The two live disks in the Replacements' Dead Man's Pop box are caged energy - nothing from the studio could rival it.

..and how about Live Stiffs and the Twin Tone live set back from the day? Absolutely essential. And the Allman Bros...The Who at Leeds....

But I would agree many live albums are just boring. I love The Kinks, but all those live sets they put out were one and done for me.

It really depends on whether the live show was something unique. When it is, I can and do repeatedly listen.

 

Because now in the 'glow' of the evening I'm having warm and fuzzy thoughts about several of the live albums people have mentioned and am tempted to play them which self-defeats the purpose of this thread.