You have this absolutely right. The Kinks in the late 70s were a great and hugely fun band to experience!
I’m fine with live replication of good songs with fine musicianship - Genesis is a great example of that. The closest I’ve had to your Def Leppard experience (incidentally I have seen DL live twice, including once before the drummer’s car accident) was Pink Floyd in the mid 1980s. I was such a big Floyd fan that I got tickets to consecutive nights. Big mistake: they were incredible on the first night. Awesome concert. And on the second night they were exactly the same - every song, every note, every visual effect - to such a degree that I was disappointed. I realised that they were so finely tuned by that stage of the tour that they were almost playing on autopilot.
In my previous post, I should have listed the tracks that were released on One For The Road that replaced those that were dropped from that unreleased album. 20th Century Man Prince Of The Punks Stop Your Sobbing National Health Till The End Of The Day (reggae arrangement) David Watts Of these, all but one were recorded on those last minute March 1980 shows after the decision was made to cancel that Double Life release and record more shows. 20th Century Man dates from March 1979 so it's interesting this was not in the initial track list to begin with but added later. In looking at this list of titles it's obvious Ray had some marketing strategy in mind by adding two more songs that were recent hit covers of their songs and I have no problem with that decision. They were having a resurgence in the US and it makes perfect sense to try to capitalize on that while the iron is hot. He knew how fleeting success was from past experience no doubt. However, I sure would like to have those other unreleased tracks come out someday.
I remember back during the Preservation Act 2 album we had the discussion on Slum Kids as it was part of the live shows after that album was released even though a studio recording was never done that we know about. The videos posted at that time in January of this year were from various performances on YouTube including the 1977 Christmas Concert. For some reason at that point we could not find the live version as was released as a bonus track on the 1998 Velvel CD reissue of Preservation Act 2. I looked during that Jan discussion then and couldn't find it either. Using Mark’s timeline I went back to double check this tonight just to make sure and no, we never did find and post it in Jan. I decided to search again tonight and damn it's there now and says it's been there for the last 5 years. So why didn't come up during searches back in Jan? Oh well. Actually it’s fitting since the recording released on that Act 2 reissue CD and again on the subsequent 2008 Picture Book box set was recorded during these same 1979 shows as most of the One For The One recordings. And it was this recording that was mixed by Ray and slated for that unreleased Double Life LP. So technically it belongs here anyway. The earlier versions from the 1974-1977 era were slower and more bluesy with John Gosling's Hammond organ featured. This March 1979 recording is like most of their performances from this era of older songs - faster and more streamlined and, in this case, an electric piano replacing the Hammond, although it's a later studio overdub by Gibbons replacing Edwards and Jim Rodford is now on bass guitar of course. Anyway, as a Sunday bonus track, here it is for those without the Velvel CD reissue of Act 2 or the Picture Book box set.
Yeah DJ since age 16. Radio, clubs, mobile. Lost a lot during the pandemic and then got hit with this. Keeping it together though. The music gets me through. Always has
Hey this is some really cool trivia! Thank you. On our Sunday break and with all the talk about live albums, as I've said previously I never was a big fan of live albums. That said, as I've heard and picked up a few over the years, I do have a list of favorites and it already looks like One For The Road will be a must buy for me. I also need to check out Alchemy. My all-time favorite would have to be It's Too Late To Stop Now by Van Morrison (the more recent expanded versions are great too)- but It's Too Late is so dang good! The aforementioned Seger's Live Bullet is right up there and The Talking Heads' Stop Making Sense is another I go to quite often along with Springsteen & The E Street Band's Hammersmith Odeon, Rockpile's Live At Montreux 1980 and all three of John Prine's live records. A sneaky good hybrid of live and studio music is Jerry Jeff Walker's A Man Must Carry On. This Double Life would have been amazing, maybe Ray will get that record out sometime? Good Sunday wishes to each and every one of you!
Count me in as another vote for Too Late to Stop Now. It’s a fantastic live album. Sounds as good to my ears as a recorded live-in-the-studio album. I’d love to know if there was any studio sweetening done on that album if anyone knows. I was hesitant to get the deluxe edition, but it was great to hear that Van and the band did not play every song the same way every night. The main album definitely flows as if it was all recorded at the same performance, though it wasn’t. I am enjoying One For The Road, but one of the things that bother me a little, and it is just a little, is that sometimes the edits from one track to another take me out of the illusion of listening to a single live concert, which I guess is what I’m looking for in a live album. I don’t listen to Stop Making Sense too much as an album, but what a great concert film to watch, as was seeing David Byrne’s show on Broadway.
I watched Stop Making Sense on the big screen at a local theatre a year or so ago and it was amazing how the audience reacted to it. It was like a live show. Another live album I enjoy a lot is the Ramones' It's Alive, which was recorded New Year's Eve 1977 in London, just a few days from the Kinks' show. In fact, members of both bands saw each other's shows.
I did watch the video of One From The Road last night and I noticed that the credits were rolled after "Pressure" but the concert continued w/"Catch Me Now I'm Falling" and "Victoria". I don't know if this was a mistake or an effort to make the concert seem longer.
You’re going to hold me to this, are you? I do remember this promise, and all along I’ve intended to wax on what I consider the Kinks most effective LP jacket design. It looms over me like a term paper assignment. Now that the One For the Road discussions are here I find I have little time for it…today. Many things going on this Sunday. What I want to write about requires me to diagram it out and post it here as a series of pictures. Yet I continue to be vexed by this: So that’s another thing I need to figure out. I did it once before, but that was many months ago. So this is a long way of saying it’ll have to wait to next weekend. By my count, we’ll still be in the middle of discussing this album unless Mark decides to suddenly start posting more than two tracks a day.
No pressure !... Just my way of letting you know that I have a special appreciation for your enlightening commentary of the Kinks' bewildering cover art history. And that I read and remembered what you said about One For The Road's cover. And there will be a diagram! Looking forward to reading/seeing this whenever you have the time.
Pressure pressure I got pressure, oh yeah, oh yeah, oh yeah Pressure pressure I got pressure, oh yeah —- Ha!
This is why The Doors - Absolutely Live is my personal benchmark for live albums - it's edited so that it feels like a complete show from start to finish (even though the performances are patched together from different venues), and it places the listener in the middle of the chaos. Most live albums the crowd sounds like distant white noise that suddenly shows up after the song is over. In Absolutely Live the crowd feels integrated and becomes part of the performance. For just one example, there's a great moment in the cover of Bo Diddley's Who Do You Love? where Morrison sings "Heard a bump, somebody screamed" and timed perfectly on the next beat a blood-curdling scream comes out of the crowd.
JJW's been my biggest new passion in the last couple of years. I'm crazy about his stuff, and all his live or semi-live LP's are treasures to behold. I think this guy had the most natural singing voice I've ever heard, instantly likable and musical in the most unadorned, earnest, effortless way. A lot of what I like about his bar country and rock'n roll music's pretty close to what the Kinks were trying to achieve in their 1971/1972 said "americana" phase or what other thread's favorite Ronnie Lane was all about, Faces & (especially) solo. For what it's worth, I'll add the following to the list of favorite "classic" live records : Joni Mitchell's Miles of Aisles, Paul Simon Live Rhymin' (and both sixties Simon & Garfunkel discs, if only for their pristine sound), CSNY's 4 Way Street (which has some fantastic music but also priceless banter and crowd presence), Leonard Cohen's Field Commander Cohen (and the Isle of Wight one, one of the great "whole performance" discs I've heard, to match @Paul Mazz's and @Luckless Pedestrian's criteria).
Part of the reason I own very few live LPs may be the sticker shock & subsequent disappointment of spending a few weeks' allowance on Wings Over America when I was 14. & though I probably have hundreds of live tracks by various artists on various mixes/playlists, there are only a tiny number of live LPs I regularly listen to all the way through: Miles of Aisles; Nirvana Unplugged; New Thing at Newport (Shepp/Coltrane); Rhymes in Rooms (Al Stewart/Peter White); On Your Feet or on Your Knees (BOC); 11-17-70 (Elton John); Time Fades Away (Neil Young); Corea/Hancock; In Concert (Derek and the Dominos); and Old & in the Way (feat. Jerry Garcia). Anyone who can figure out the common denominator wins a prize; I certainly can't.
marginalia Recently I wrote to Fred Schruers complimenting him on his writing career and asking about his long-sidelined Kinks biography. A week later he replied and thanked me for the kind words and regarding the future of the book said he is ‘keeping my powder dry.’ I took this to mean it could be revisited on the back of, (a) new Kinks activity such as a studio recording, or (b) an unfortunate death. I closed with an offer to send the going rate of a new hardcover for a weekend ‘rental’ of the manuscript. My solicitation went unaddressed. Nice chap!
Definitely one of my favorites! Another favorite is Bob Dylan- Rolling Thunder Review. I watched that documentary recently and picked up the 3LP set. Dylan is on fire! I love this record. Dylan live in 1966 at Royal Albert Hall is also great. Can’t really go wrong with live Dylan. Hawkwind- Space Ritual is another fantastic live album.
Velvet Underground, "Live 1969"/ "The Complete Matrix Tapes" is easily my favourite live rock artefact of all time, no contest... and no overdubs!
