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Live albums better than all studio work of a band |
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HolyMoly 
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 Posted: May 25 2022 at 21:06 |
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I generally don’t get a lot of mileage out of live albums, but there are a couple of exceptions:
Golden Earring Live (1977) — this blows away practically everything else in their catalog. My favorite live album of all time. King Crimson - Absent Lovers —- makes for a preferable substitute for the 80s Crimson albums. And that says a lot because I love that era of the band. |
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My other avatar is a Porsche
It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle if it is lightly greased. -Kehlog Albran |
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mellotronwave
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Posted: May 26 2022 at 10:38 |
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[QUOTE=HolyMoly] I generally don’t get a lot of mileage out of live albums, but there are a couple of exceptions:
Golden Earring Live (1977) — this blows away practically everything else in their catalog. My favorite live album of all time. I agree a huge live double LP (Elco Geeling on lead guitar (from Cubby and the Blizzard is a real plus to the original 4 pieces Flying Dutchmen)  Edited by mellotronwave - May 26 2022 at 10:40 |
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rushfan4
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Posted: May 26 2022 at 11:24 |
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I'd have expected to see suggestions from bands like Phish, the Allman Brothers, or the Grateful Dead. Jam bands that are known for their live shows but people tend to not like their studio albums.
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chopper
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Posted: May 26 2022 at 12:24 |
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Good call. I would add Thin Lizzy Live and Dangerous (even though I gather it's not 100% live) as it's a lot more powerful than their studio albums.
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SteveG
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Posted: May 26 2022 at 12:32 |
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Gilmour: Live In Gdansk. Takes the On An Island songs makes them spectacular!
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Dellinger
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Posted: May 26 2022 at 21:48 |
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Indeed. On an Island is much better live. |
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mellotronwave
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Posted: May 27 2022 at 02:30 |
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If so, one band comes to my mind : Gov't mule ! 
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richardh
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Posted: May 27 2022 at 02:35 |
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Sorry for being pedantic but half of that is live (Filmore East club, NY) and half was recorded at the BBC but with no audience. Great album though and the first time you really hear Emerson in full flight as part of The Nice. I'm sure you already know, but the album was a posthumous release to cash in on the success of ELP.
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nick_h_nz
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Posted: May 27 2022 at 02:41 |
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If you want to be particularly pedantically, then both halves are live, as live-in-studio releases are still generally considered live albums. There are numerous examples of live albums in PA that were recorded with no audience, it is not the presence of an audience that makes a live album a live album. Furthermore, there are probably several live albums in PA that were recorded with an audience, but which had studio overdubs before being released. There are likely many cases where a live-in-studio album could be said to be more live than a conventional live album. |
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richardh
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Posted: May 27 2022 at 02:42 |
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ELP - Welcome Back My Friends To The Show That Never Ends , Ladies and Gentleman..
Roxy Music - Viva Roxy Music Manfred Mann's Earthband - Live In Budapest Par Lindh Project - Live In Iceland those were all special bands that were fantastic live. Roxy of course had the added prog clout of Wetton and Jobson in the line up circa 1975. Par Lindh had the wonderful and much missed Magda Hagberg . I would argue that Manfred Mann's Earthband were also a much better live band than the studio albums suggest while ELP were just off the scale live , those versions of Tarkus, KE9 and Toccata easily eclipse the studio versions imo.
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richardh
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Posted: May 27 2022 at 02:43 |
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I truly doubt that
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nick_h_nz
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Posted: May 27 2022 at 02:54 |
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Doubt all you like. The fact that so many live-in-studio albums are included [in PA] as live albums, rather than studio albums, does tend to suggest your doubt is misplaced. Furthermore, you need only look to the very recent past, where covid made conventional live gigs and live recordings near impossible. There were plenty of live-in-studio gigs, whose audience was only virtual. Some of these were recorded and released as live albums, and some were simply a you had to be there experience. But there are only a minority of people (you being one, I guess) who would not consider these to have been live shows, or that the recordings of them released, to be live albums. [EDIT] I forgot to say in PA, so have added that to the sentence where I intended it to be. It was implied, but its omission made the sentence less clear. Edited by nick_h_nz - May 27 2022 at 02:55 |
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Lewian
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Posted: May 27 2022 at 04:00 |
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Agree.
Seriously? I mean I have no complaints about that album, it's fine. But you prefer it over Solar Fire, Nightingales and Bombers, Watch? I'd agree that they were very good live though, but their best phase was long gone when they did Budapest, I'd say. (Of course it's all taste but we can discuss these albums here, too!) Another nomination is Curved Air Live by the way.
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BaldJean
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Posted: May 27 2022 at 05:26 |
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the only bad thing about this album is that it is not a double album. I especially love "Everdance"; Sonja Kristina goes really wild in it, especially at the beginning of this song; she is almost barking and growling like a dog there
Edited by BaldJean - May 27 2022 at 05:38 |
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 A shot of me as High Priestess of Gaia during our fall festival. Ceterum censeo principiis obsta |
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Syzygy
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Posted: May 27 2022 at 06:12 |
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Some bands and performers really come alive in concert, and I prefer good quality live recordings to the sometimes rather sterile studio offerings.
Magma has already been mentioned, and most of their live albums are excellent. King Crimson have plenty of live albums to choose from. From the archival releases I particularly like The Night Watch and Absent Lovers; from their more recent offerings, Live in Vienna. Soft Machine also have an abundance of splendid archival live albums, although the very early ones don't have brilliant sound quality. Can have started releasing bootleg recordings from the mid 70s, and Live in Stuttgart is excellent. Live releases from the Gong family tree are a genre unto themselves. I will also big up Live Underslunky by Ozric Tentacles. |
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'Like so many of you
I've got my doubts about how much to contribute to the already rich among us...' Robert Wyatt, Gloria Gloom |
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Sean Trane
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Posted: May 27 2022 at 06:48 |
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Great post Chris You forgot about Nucleus, though ========== Golden Earring - Live (1977) Grobschnitt - Solar Music Live Gentle Giant - Playing the Fool TD - Ricochet (not really 100% live, though) Magma - Hhaï Purple - Made in Europe >> Would like to see expanded one day Allman Brother - At Fillmore East Santana - Lotus (Moonflower is also quite OK) KC - The Night Watch Out Of Focus - Live in Palermo 72 (their only gig outside Germany and the only one recorded) Peter Frampton - Comes Alive  HP Lovecraft - May 11Th 1968 Via movies Neil Young & CH - Live Rust/Rust Never Sleeps Talking Heads - Stop Making Sense (movie not album) Pink Floyd - Pompeii Zep - TSRTSEdited by Sean Trane - May 27 2022 at 06:51 |
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let's just stay above the moral melee
prefer the sink to the gutter keep our sand-castle virtues content to be a doer as well as a thinker, prefer lifting our pen rather than un-sheath our sword |
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moshkito
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Posted: May 27 2022 at 07:01 |
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Hi, It is a tough thing, though. Think about it. In many of the shows the music takes a life of its own, and you follow it with your eyes closed and enjoy the trip ... and then you pick up an album, and you find ... that's not what I saw, heard or thought! So, yeah, specially a band like The Almond Brothers, or The Grateful Dead, the biggest attraction to their work, was the insane synchronicity in their stage shows, despite whatever else. Somehow the music still stood out and up, and I think this was the greatest MEMORY Fillmore days, that progressive music folks have never understood or appreciated, and now think that too much of that stuff is just a waste of time, and noodling around. There is a massive difference between "something" and "nothing" ... but expecting FANS to decipher which is which? It's a game of fools! For fools, to boot!
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Music is not just for listening ... it is for LIVING ... you got to feel it to know what's it about! Not being told!
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HolyMoly
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Posted: May 27 2022 at 09:09 |
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My other avatar is a Porsche
It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle if it is lightly greased. -Kehlog Albran |
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Stressed Cheese
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Posted: May 27 2022 at 12:52 |
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Grateful Dead's Europe '72 is the only one I can think of (not that I've heard all of their studio albums). Other than that, Zappa's live albums are great, and like Grateful Dead, part of his core discography unlike most artists, but they often have a decent amount of overdubs so I don't really count them for the purpose of this thread. And even then, there isn't one that's "better that all studio work" he's done.
In general I dislike live albums and tend to avoid them unless they're part of a band's core discography (like with GD and Zappa), or if I happen to get them as part of a boxset.
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nick_h_nz
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Posted: June 05 2022 at 13:00 |
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I happened to put Queen’s Live at the Rainbow on, and as I’m listening to it, it has reminded me of this thread,
I decided the way to work out of I like a live album more than the studio albums would be to work out which album I would keep, if I could keep only one album from a band - and I absolutely would take Queen’s Live at the Rainbow over any other. Two absolutely fantastic gigs largely comprised from material from my favourite two Queen albums (the first two), and performed incredibly. The band is on fire, and many of the live renditions feel far stronger and more impressive to me, than their studio counterparts. It never occurred to me that this is my favourite Queen release, but listening to it now, there is no question. It’s simply fantastic, with a band firing on all cylinders. |
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Catcher10 wrote: