I really love A Show of Hands by Rush. It's one of my favorite of their eras, though I feel like the "synth era" isn't as universally loved by fans
this post was submitted on 09 Jul 2023
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"Coldplay Live 2003", mainly because it contains some of my favorite deep cuts.
Probably an odd one, but Yanni—Live at the Acropolis. It is damn near the perfect live recording if you can listen to it on an old school CD player or on a media player that supports gapless listening (no breaks / pauses between tracks). It's a series of full orchestra arrangements and medleys of his solo piano work that really doesn't have any flaws.
For probably 99% of the music I listen to, I vastly prefer live over recordings and live recording over studio. Big band jazz is my oldest love, trad (instrumental folk) my deepest, opera my newest. They're all genres centred around live performance. It's the way music has been for most of human history, people playing for themselves and other people. Studio effects can be interesting but they don't have the same immediacy. While it may be a shared endeavour for the musicians and producers, we as an audience can only give them our money, not our energy.
Top is (Duke) Ellington at Newport, from the 1956 Newport Jazz Festival. Superbly talented geniuses who were on fire and we're so lucky it was recorded. The gem amongst gems is the sequence of Diminuendo in Blue and Crescendo in Blue with an Interlude from Paul Gonsalves. Both group and solo work are excellent, everyone on top of their game. Starts out mellow, and then builds, and builds, and builds. Listen to the crowd loving it. They know they're experiencing something truly special. https://piped.simpleprivacy.fr/watch?v=wIX7fnYANak
Lau Live Lau (word for a particular quality of light in Orkney) is a Scottish & English experimental trad band who are phenomenal live, especially in tunes like this where they build and build the energy. They crank the musical tension and when they let it go, it's visceral. Being in the room and feeling the vibrations is the best, but this album (good headphones mandatory) will do. https://piped.simpleprivacy.fr/watch?v=hoEYutpgnuQ
That said, the last time I heard them play was a double bill with a young Danish trio called Dreamers' Circus and they out-Lau'ed Lau.
Trad music is great like that.
More mainstream, I'm also very fond of The Allman Brothers Band at Filmore East.
There's a couple that I really enjoy:
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Vulfpeck - Live at Madison Square Garden: I was never really one for live albums, more often than not I found it tough immersing myself in the music and the performance so I (wrongfully) write them off. But this album flipped a switch in my brain I didn't even know I had, I could physically feel the energy from the band and the crowd, it's seriously infectious! every single one of the musicians on stage brought their absolute A game, to the point where there's several songs on the live album that I prefer over the studio versions (e.g. Funky Duck, Christmas in LA, 1612, Cory Wong)
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LCD Soundsystem - the long goodbye: I got into LCD Soundsystem a little after their touring hiatus, so I'd always listen to this one sad that I probably won't be able to go to one of their live performances in the foreseeable future (I did get to see them at Re:Set though which was great!). Hearing the crowd go crazy during the drop in dance yrself clean is a religious experience! and all my friends is a song that's always made me pretty emotional, so hearing it in a live setting always gets me going lol. Absolutely recommend this one to anyone who's even remotely into their music.
Sonata Arctica - Songs of Silence, Live in Tokyo
Listening to the studio versions of these songs is weird for me now. It is one of the few live albums I've listened to where the audience adds something.
This isn’t an album, but I love O’Brother’s various Audiotree recordings. They’re just so BIG and intense. I don’t know how to explain it. You can really feel some sort of alchemy happening while they’re playing, and the vocals are freaking wild. I love the recorded versions, but these ones feel turned up a notch to me. There is an energy in it that i find really compelling. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uflJpjdmyG8
Pink Floyd was already mentioned, but David Gilmour’s Live at Pompeii is also a thing of beauty. I accidentally ran across it playing on PBS a few years ago and was glued to the screen for the whole thing, then immediately ordered the Blu-ray to watch again.
On less mainstream note, New Grass Revival’s Live cd is not just better than their live albums, but is close to my favorite bluegrass album of all time. Studio bluegrass can sound too “manufactured” for me.
Also, aside from the Zappa already mentioned, there’s a Zappa Plays Zappa live album/dvd with Napoleon Murphy Brock and Steve Vai, which I also really love. The Zomby Woof from that on YouTube is a great highlight.
Back Sabbath - Live Evil Metallica - S&M
I've posted once but another favorite and something that everyone should experience at least once is Monsters of Rock 1991 in Moscow, Russia during the dissolution of the USSR.
I'm not sure if I'd call it a live album in the classic sense but it was a giant concert recorded live featuring Metallica, Pantera, AC/DC, E.S.T (A Russian heavy metal Band), and The Black Crowes performing at Tushino Airfield. Here's a more in-depth article about the event.
It was documented into a film called For Those About to Rock: Monsters in Moscow, which is available on YouTube
Neil Young - Live at Massey Hall
Meola, McLaughlin, Lucia - Friday Night in San Francisco
Bill Evans - Waltz for Debby, Sunday at the Village Vanguard
Tim Buckley - Dream Letter: Live in London 1968
Eric Dolphy - Live at the Five Spot
Lou Reed - Rock ‘n’ Roll Animal
The Puscifer live albums that released during lockdown and Slayer - Decade of Aggression
Leprous' Live at Rockefeller Music Hall. The whole thing is great but it's mostly because they did this as the last song of the concert, somehow. The swansong of a very different, darker, more brutal era for the band. The guy doing the harsh vocals here, Ishan, he isn't even part of the band, really. But here he is. I'm not even a fan of black metal with vocals this harsh, usually, but godDAMN the energy is infectious. Better than the studio recording because the showmanship of doing it right at the end like this is so damn impressive.
My first choice ended up in my top played albums for two years straight, these are all frequent/recent favorites...
Tom Waits - Glitter & Doom
James McMurtry & the Heartless Bastards - Live in Aught-Three
16 Horsepower - Hoarse
Pain of Salvation - Be (live)
I almost never prefer live albums, but these work for me. Some live albums are "you had to be there" things for me. And even some where I was there (Rush Snakes and Arrows Live), they don't work for me. I can't really articulate why.
Daft Punk's "Alive 2007" is still one of the best live shows I've ever heard.