Live Albums

Hi,

Outstanding choices.

Would like to include:

Frank Zappa - Roxy & Elsewhere

ELP - Pictures At An Exhibition

Amon Duul 2 - Live in London

Grobbschnit - Solar Music Live

Guru Guru - Some of the very early stuff with Ax Gernrich doing his crazy stuff, which gave us some stuff in a few albums

Can - Hard to not mention this band live, with Damo ... but sadly, so much of the stuff that is shown up in the past few years, is not complete, so you don't really have a nice view. But the special TRIBUTE to Jaki is a must see for anyone ... it was excellent and it got better with Damo towards the end.

Ange - Tome VI ... fantastic live album!

Some jazzy stuff:

Gismonti, Haden and Garbarek - Magico 

Return to Forever - The Mothership Returns

Miles Davis - The recent bootleg series that was released of Miles in France, has some incredible stuff, and you can see why he liked playing in Europe ... he never had to worry about a hit ... he could just show up and play ... and DID!

Some other stuff:

Tangerine Dream - So many great concerts live, in their last 20 years since Jerome left, and even the shows with him were good. It was just strange that some folks disliked it because it was about the music, and not the "show" as rock fans insist. In one show I saw them, Edgar Froese stopped a show to ask that a fan be removed ... he shouted rock'n'roll for a long time ... before Edgar blew his fuse, and deservedly so!

Klaus Schulze - The Live stiff with Lisa is excellent, and courageous, but it shows how good he was as a live performer, and while I never met anyone that saw any of his shows (never made it to America I don't think!), the few that are shown on video are incredible. 

Kate Bush - The Live show in London which is available on CD but she has said that the video is not a priority. I think she is overly critical of her stuff, but I bet that the personal appearance was not what she wanted to show most, as her history was very strong in that area. But the music in the show, per CD's, was magnificent.

Mississippi Charles Bevel - He was a singer and songwriter that quit the music business and was working as an engineer at the PBS station in LA. He had a 30 minute video done at the station that was out of this world, and one of the prettiest and tuneful voices ever, singing his own material. The station has not replied to my email inquiring about that video, in 4 tries over 3 years. The material was outstanding and it was about "freedom" ... the kind that we don't always see or follow! Best concert I have ever seen! Also saw him in Santa Barbara with Chick Streetman and they were fabulous together.

Nektar - Live ... on the first American tour and at the Santa Monica Civic ... they tore up the place. Incredible all around, and it was never shown at all despite there being a lot of video cameras around the floor. My guess is that the material was not quite as close to the albums as it could be, and thus a live album was not done, to prevent the fans from seeing something they did not quite recognize. A bad, very bad, decision. Otherwise "Sounds Like This" is a LIVE album!

Hawkwind - (first) Space Ritual tour, also at the Santa Monica Civic ... insanely good and strong, though it was very loud and roomie had a hard time with it for a week or so.

AND, best of all ... the 1972 Pink Floyd show at The Hollywood Bowl ... IN QUADRAPHONIC sound, which you had a chance of hearing if you saw the original THE WALL, or the first set of movie shows of THE WALL that were done in QUAD. After that, the band went downhill for me. The sound, and those first notes of "One Of These Days" going around the whole venue at the start, was, by itself ... insane and far out. The other excellent moment was in THE WALL ... when the girl said ... look at all those guitars ... and you hear her walk from the back of the audience to the front of the audience to the guitars ... if you can visualize ... that could only be done in QUAD, and RW murdered that moment in his own version.