Quick List 167: Favorite Live Albums

[cortez the killer]

Weld/Neil Young & Crazy Horse
Viva Terlingua/Jerry Jeff Walker
Waylon Live/Waylon Jennings
Trials & Errors/Magnolia Electric Co.
Live in Aught-Three/James McMurtry & The Heartless Bastards

[Smitty]

1. Weld - Neil
2. One More From The Road - Skynyrd
3. Live at Old Quarter - Townes
4. Live in Aught Three - James McMurtry
5. Kicking Television - Wilco
6. Alabama Ass Whuppin - DBT
7. Shut Up & Die Like an Aviator - Steve Earle
8. Live 1975-85 - Bruce
9. Okonokos - MMJ
10. Near Truths & Hotel Rooms - Todd Snider

if we were talking bootlegs, Tales from Moondawgs would be numero uno

[Tequila Cowboy]

Live Rust- Neil Young
Get Your Ya Yas out- Rolling Stones
Live at the Old Quarter- Townes Van Zandt
Okonokos- My Morning Jacket
Kicking Television- Wilco
Some Enchanted Evening- Blue Oyster Cult
Live at Budokan- Cheap Trick
Live Alchemy- Dire Straits
Rock of Ages- The Band
Live at Leeds- The Who

[Iowan]

Live at Leeds - The Who
MTV Unplugged - Nirvana
Kicking Television - Wilco
Get Your Ya-Ya's Out - The Stones
Live at the Greek - Jimmy Page and the Black Crowes
Alabama Ass Whuppin' - DBT
Live '72 - Grateful Dead
Live at Luther - Dave Matthews and Tim Reynolds (my cousin can be heard dog whistling at them between songs)

[Clams]

MTV Unplugged - Nirvana

In the pines! The pines! The sun... don't shine! Shiver, the whole day through!!!

Yes.

[shuffle]

5. Neil Young - Live Rust
4. Neil Young - Crazy Horse At The Fillmore 1970
3. Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band - Hammersmith Odeon, London '75
2. David Bowie - Live Santa Monica '72
1. Neil Young - Live At Massey Hall 1971

[scotto]

Dylan, Live 1966, "The Royal Albert Hall" concert
Neil Young, Time Fades Away
Roxy Music, Viva!
Talking Heads, The Name of This Band Is Talking Heads
Duke Ellington, Ellington at Newport

[mhc]

Inpo
Waiting For Columbus-Little Feat
Get Your Ya Yas Out- Stones
Rocking the Fillmore-Humble Pie
Live at the Village Vanguard-John Coltrane
Live at the Fillmore West-King Curtis
Live at Folsom Prison- Johnny Cash
bob Dylan and the Band-Before the Flood
James Brown- Say It Live and Loud, Live in Dallas
The Allman Brothers- At the Fillmore East
van Morrison- It's too Late to Stop Now
Joe Cocker Maddogs and Englishmen

[dime in the gutter]

good ones mentioned. a few others.

johnny cash/san quentin (better of the 2)
jerry lee/live at star club
james brown/live at the apollo
jimi and gypsys/live at fillmore
allman bros/live at fillmore

[RevMatt]

This is a tough one for me. I guess I am weird because when I am checking out a band for the first time, I am much more likely to buy a live album than a studio album. So I have lots of live albums. Narrowing it down to five is a tough one.

1: Stones/ Get Yer Ya Yas Out Pretty much the soundtrack to Gimme Shelter. I love this album.
2: The Beatles Live At The Hollywood Bowl For pure energy, this album can't be beat. When The Beatles could hear themselves they were one of the best live bands. They toured before monitors were used for bands, but the shell surrounding the stage at The Hollywood Bowl allowed them to hear themselves for these shows. I believe this album is out of print.
3: Townes Van Zandt Live At The Old Quarter I think these are the purest versions of Townes' songs.
4: Johnny Cash Live at Folsom Prison For total badassery, this album can't be beat. Cash bad mouthing the screws, the inmates booing the warden, the announcements in between songs. And it all climaxes when Johnny Cash performs a song written by one of the inmates. This album goes a long way in explaining why so many American men cried when Johnny Cash died.
5: Johnny Thunders and The Heartbreakers Live At the Lyceum Ballroom This album is the essence of punk rock. Recorded in 1984, it features Thunders during one of the rare periods where he was not strung out on smack. His voice is clear, the band cooks and Thunders insults the audience in between songs. The opening trifecta of "Pipeline", "Personality Crisis" and "One Track Mind" alone is worth the price of admission.

[Zip City]

Some of my favorites:

Pink Floyd - Pulse
Pink Floyd - Is There Anybody Out There?
Pink Floyd - Ummagumma Disc 1
Dead Can Dance - Toward the Within
The Bad Examples - Cheap Beer Night
Avett Brothers - Live Volume 3
MMJ - Okonokos
Wilco - Kicking Television

[tinnitus photography]

Neil Young - Time Fades Away
Mogwai - Special Moves
Blue Oyster Cult - On Your Feet Or On Your Knees
Wilco - Kicking Television
Sonic Youth - Walls Have Ears
Big Black - Sound Of Impact
The Jesus Lizard - Show
My Morning Jacket - Okonokos
U2 - Under A Blood Red Sky
Songs: Ohia - Mi Sei Apparso Come Un Fantasma

[bovine knievel]

Lots of great stuff mentioned, thought I'd add some that I don't think have been listed...

In no particular order...

Live Bullet - Bob Seger
Five Man Acoustical Jam - Tesla
Live From Austin City Limits - DBT
Live Shots - Joe Ely
Okie From Muskogee - Merle Haggard
Rock of Ages: The Band in Concert - The Band
The Last Waltz - The Band
Priest...Live! - Judas Priest

[cortez the killer]

Songs: Ohia - Mi Sei Apparso Come Un Fantasma

Nice one.

[Smitty]

Live Bullet - Bob Seger

spent many preteen years listening to this on vinyl in my dad's shop

[sactochris]

Live Bullet - Bob Seger

spent many preteen years listening to this on vinyl in my dad's shop

I always liked Nine Tonight. I love his version of Trying To Live My Life Without You.

[sactochris]

Mott The Hoople, Live The 30th Anniversary Edition
Warren Zevon, Stand In The Fire
Cheap Trick, Budokan
Neil Young, Live Rust
The Dead, Europe 72
The Stones, Ya Ya's
Humble Pie, Rockin The Fillmore
The Band, Rock Of Ages
Little Feat, Waiting For Columbus
Talking Heads, Stop Making Sense

[3milelake]

The Band - The Last Waltz
Jerry Lee Lewis - Live at the Star Club
Neil Young - Weld
Jerry Jeff Walker - Viva Terlingua
Townes Van Zandt - Live at the Old Quarter

[Kudzu Guillotine]

This is a tough one for me. I guess I am weird because when I am checking out a band for the first time, I am much more likely to buy a live album than a studio album. So I have lots of live albums. Narrowing it down to five is a tough one.

I don't think your list has to be confined to just five. If so, there's no mention of it in the subject line.

I grew up in the era of the live album but one thing that has thrown me for a loop recently is reading all of these reports of how some of them were never even live to start with. With Kiss Alive! that really doesn't surprise me, nor does it lessen my appreciation of the record (my first ever Kiss purchase back in the day) but to read it about such a legendary live record as Frampton Comes Alive! is somewhat disheartening. It makes you wonder what other artists are guilty of this and if it's something they'd even be willing to address all of these years after the fact. Apparently crowd noise was added to Frampton Comes Alive! in order to "sweeten" it. So, no wonder the crowd reaction was so strong to songs that had never been all that successful in their studio incarnations before. I also never knew that the recordings on Little Feat's Waitin' For Columbus and Lynyrd Skynyrd's One More From the Road were spliced together from different nights until reading the liner notes in the deluxe editions of both albums. At least they've made no secret of it. Zeppelin's The Song Remains the Same soundtrack also isn't free of this sort of tinkering. It's not only true of the original soundtrack and the reissue but it's also true of their other official live releases The BBC Sessions, How The West Was Won and the Led Zeppelin DVD the editing of which are all recounted in painstaking detail on the The Garden Tapes website. Back in the 70s, my love of live albums was pretty much cemented by Frampton Comes Alive!, One More From the Road and The Song Remains the Same all of which also boast amazing liner notes from Cameron Crowe. Back when Kicking Television was first released Jeff Tweedy did a top ten list of his favorite live albums which included the Allmans Live At Fillmore East. I was tickled to death to read that list as I think it helped removed some of the stigma that surrounds live albums and also helped to place the likes of Kicking Television firmly among them.

All of that said, here are some of my other favorites from over the years:

R.E.M. Live at the Olympia
Neil Young and Crazy Horse Rust Never Sleeps
Jackson Browne Running On Empty
Foghat Live!
Old & In the Way Old & In the Way
The Earl Scruggs Revue Live! From Austin City Limits (which finally came out on CD last year thanks to the folks at Wounded Bird)
Pure Prairie League Live! Takin' the Stage (which has never been released on CD)
New Riders of the Purple Sage Home, Home On the Road
Commander Cody & His Lost Planet Airmen We've Got A Live One Here! (this one also finally saw the light of day on CD a few years ago after being out of print for far too long)
Jimmy Buffett & the Coral Reefer Band You Had To Be There
Leon Russell Leon Live!
James McMurtry & the Heartless Bastards Live In Aught-Three

[Clams]

Live Bullet - Bob Seger

spent many preteen years listening to this on vinyl in my dad's shop

I always liked Nine Tonight. I love his version of Trying To Live My Life Without You.

Those are both great.

[sactochris]

I always liked Nine Tonight. I love his version of Trying To Live My Life Without You.[/quote]

Those are both great.[/quote]


The Eagles "borrow' heavily from that song on the title track to The Long Run. I read somewhere that's was why Segar recorded the song because it pissed him off that they had basically stolen the melody.

[Steve French]

Some of my favorites:

Pink Floyd - Pulse
Pink Floyd - Is There Anybody Out There?
Pink Floyd - Ummagumma Disc 1
Dead Can Dance - Toward the Within
The Bad Examples - Cheap Beer Night
Avett Brothers - Live Volume 3
MMJ - Okonokos
Wilco - Kicking Television

I didnt know that was a live album. Though I havent heard it for, um, nearly 25 years I guess. Will look up, thanks for the reminder.

Some of mine:

David Live: David Bowie. Most people rate "Live in Santa Monica 72, or Stage ahead of this, but this is the one for me. First live album I ever loved, still play it pretty regularly.

Rammstein: Live Aus Berlin: Volkerball is better ifyou are playing the DVD because you see one of the best stadium rock shows I've ever seen. Think of Kiss, but with better songs, slightly less makeup, more pyro, and German. These guys get a bad rap but I think they're fabulous.

Thin Lizzy: Love and Dangerous: another from my school days. Totally worth it for "The Boys are Back in Town"

The Clash "From Here to Eternity Live" I like this because it has early career stuff, rather than the late career stadium rock era "Live at Shea Stadium"

PIL: Live in Japan. Get it.

Patti Smith: Horses Live. This is disc 2 of the 25th anniversary of Horses. Totally worth buying. Recorded live in London in 2006.

Black Sabbath: I've got a bootleg DVD of a yorkshire television recording of The Sabs live in France in 1970 just before Paranoid came out. Its great, if of average quality. the best thing is the crowd, which just sits there and applauds after each number. (including War Pigs and Paranoid)

The Stranglers: I had a live record of theirs called "Live X Certificate" which was IIRC pretty good. Dont have it now, nor know where it is

Stiff Little Fingers: "Hanx" recorded live in 1981 I think: this is pretty much the set they do today! Yep, still touring. Saw them a year or so ago.

Dead Kennedys "Live at the Deaf Club" I like this a lot, though I must say the internal wranglings and law suits took some of the gloss off this band for me. But you know, its all about money.

Warren Zevon: Stand in the Fire. O for Oarsome.

Sisters of Mercy: Live at Boblingen 1982 (?) I think. If I am indulging my Gothy side, this is the SoM I put on usuallly. Its a bootleg but great quality, and its from my favourite era of the band (yes, the "pop" phase)

Trojan Ska Revival boxset Disc 3: this is cheating a bit, but this is all the late 70's Ska revival/two tone bands you know and love, live recordings. This is a good boxset, without this disc, but with it, its fantastic.

Rob Zombie: Zombie Live: Its a live "best of" but a good overview: released when he was doing the movies and had contract obligations I suspect.

There's more: BRB

[Steve French]

The Band - The Last Waltz
Jerry Lee Lewis - Live at the Star Club
Neil Young - Weld
Jerry Jeff Walker - Viva Terlingua
Townes Van Zandt - Live at the Old Quarter

I have been trying to buy this unsuccessfully.

I have a Gillian Welch/David Rawlings "Live" DVD which I really like, too. I so enjoyed their concert (in what, 2006?)

I've got a bootleg of a Rolling Stones concert from Sydney in the mid Seventies thats pretty cool too "Happy Birthday Nicky"

[Slipkid42]

Allman Bros. - Live @ Fillmore
Blue Oyster Cult - On Your Feet, Or On Your Knees
J. Geils - Full House
The Concert For Bangladesh
Deep Purple - Made in Japan
Yes - Yessongs
Woodstock
Wishbone Ash - Live Dates

[Tequila Cowboy]

Allman Bros. - Live @ Fillmore

Oh man! How did I forget this one?

[hendooman]

Live Dead - GD
Dylan 1966 Royal Albert Hall
Radiohead - I might be wrong: live recordings
Alabama ass whooping
Bob Marley : Live at the Roxy
Trials and Errors - Magnolia
Jimmy Page / Black Crowes - live at the Greek
Zep - Song Remains the Same
Peter Tosh : Live and Dangerous Boston 1976
Warren Haynes : Live at Bonaroo

[beantownbubba]

Allman Bros. - Live @ Fillmore

Oh man! How did I forget this one?

Yeah, at first glance, i'm surprised at how few mentions this has gotten so far. It's there, but not so much. I would have bet money it would be the clear #1. Most of what i'd probably list has been mentioned but i'll try to put a list together anyway.

Dime, what's your view on whether JB Live at the Apollo is really live?

[Iowan]

MTV Unplugged - Nirvana

In the pines! The pines! The sun... don't shine! Shiver, the whole day through!!!

Yes.

I remember playing that album as I layed down going to bed the day I bought it. First listen. I was literally too scared to sleep after "Where Did You Sleep Last Night?". I was probably all of 12 or 13, but still. In an indelible image.

[beantownbubba]

You guys have covered almost all my favorites. Just a couple of additions:

I think i may be the only person in the world who likes this one, but i actually really do like Bruce & the E Streeters Live in NYC.

The Stax/Volt Revue Live in London, and to a lesser extent, Live in Paris.

The Monterey Festival box set is a mixed bag, but before that there was the Jimi Hendrix/Otis Redding Live at Monterey album, and that just smokes.

Scotto mentioned Ellington at Newport and I think it was mhc who noted Coltrane at the Vanguard, both of which are great, but so much of jazz is live that it's almost its own genre. There are a number of jazz newbies on the board so i thought i'd list a few additional "must haves" :

The Greatest Jazz Concert Ever (aka Jazz at Massey Hall) - the peak of bee bop: An all star concert based on the voting of some jazz society, it brought together Bird, Diz, Mingus, Roach & Powell. Amazing. If you're gonna have only one jazz album this might well be the one to have.

The Greatest Jazz Concert in the World - The Ellington big band, ella fitzgerald, t bone walker, coleman hawkins and a bunch of other greats that i forget now.

Sunday at the Village Vanguard - Bill Evans

The Last Concert - The Modern Jazz Quartet

VSOP - Herbie Hancock et al. I'm reminded that i haven't listened to this one in ages. Gotta fix that. The concept was HH playing w/ different groups representing different phases of his career, and given the length (even back then) and breadth of his career, that meant a collection of luminaries that's almost hard to imagine in the same place at the same time.

The Koln Concert and Bremen-Lausanne - Solo improvisational piano might not be everyone's cup of tea, but after listening to these albums you might well ask, "why not?" Erroll Garner's Concert by the Sea is another solo piano classic

At Carnegie Hall - Thelonius Monk Quartet w/ John Coltrane

Smokin' at the Half Note - Wes Montgomery

One Night Stand - The Town Hall Concert - Sarah Vaughan & Lester Young

Just scratching the surface here.

[dime in the gutter]

Dime, what's your view on whether JB Live at the Apollo is really live?

sounds live to me. i thought the story was......jb recorded it against the wishes of his label and on his own nickel.

i am often wrong.

is there an alternate version of my truth?