I'm sure this thread has been done a million times before, but whatever.
I usually have an issue with live albums in that the production often sounds weak next to their studio recorded counterparts.
However, I listen to Spiritualized's Royal Albert Hall live album at least every other day at work. Apart from it being a good album to work to, it's just a phenomenal piece of work.
They have rehearsed to death. For such a huge band they're stupidly tight and the sound is just so... big.
I can think of no better live album in my collection. I have a couple of other good ones (GG Allin and an Atari Teenage Right), but nothing comes close to the awesomeoness of Spiritualized.
So what other good ones are there?
Totale's Turns (It's Now Or Never) by THE FALL
recoded mainly at a Doncaster Leisure Centre takes some beating.
Or 'No Snow, No Show, For the Eskimo' by The Mission anyone...
anyone?
*
Not just guitar parts!
That Fall album
sounds great. Playing in front of indifferent/hostile crowds? Insulting your own band? You don't get that from most live albums.
the recording is terrible
but yeah, that looked like an amazing show.
"are you gonna fucking play instead of showing off(uh)!!"
Minus points for mentioning the Fall.
I can't believe
...no-one's said "Get Yer Ya-Ya's Out" by the Stones, which is pretty good, but gets predictably trotted out most times I've ever seen this discussed in magazines every time they're desperate to fill space that month.
Though some of Four Tet's albums with Steve Reid are recorded live, but I'm not sure if they count. They are great though.
joe - www.anewbandaday.com
Most live albums...
Are dubbed over with new guitar parts in the studio before they are released...
I think Nirvana 'Unplugged in New York' is one of the greatest of all time. It's my favourite.
Metallica's 'S&M' is also impressive.
* ^^^
guitart parts correction.
Arab Strap - Mad For Sadness
i think you have actually uncorrected something here
Portishead - Roseland NYC Live
The tracks with an orchestra assisting sound absolutely pristine. I can't top that as a live album.
There's
an amazing Joy Division set on a cd called Les Baine Douche...two sets in fact. The first one is fucking banging, has hard hitting versions of tracks like 'Transmission' and 'Disorder'. Drums in the foreground, amps about to blow, pure energy. I don't listen to the studio albums anymore.
Los Valientes Del Mundo Nuevo by Black Lips is an amazing live album too.
Is that
the live Joy Division where everything falls apart, and instruments keep dropping out of the mix and stuff?
Because I've heard that's incredible.
Excluding the live extra discs on the reissued studio albums
there were 2 live albums released around 2001, Preston Warehouse & Les Bains Douche. The preston 1 is a show that had dodgy sound & dropouts and stuff, but Les Bains Douche is apparently a brilliant set. I've only got the preston one, Les Bains Douche seems to be out of print on cd :(
The Cramps - Smell Of Female
is brilliant
Bill Withers
Live at Carnegie Hall. Amazing, but only on Sundays while reading the paper on the couch with slight hangover fuzz. Post bacon butties, pre afteroon snooze.
Kicking television by Wilco is immense
Foot In mouth by green Day catches them in mid 90s glory, and the sound's cracking.
Wilco
yep
KICK.....
....OUT THE JAMS MOTHERFUCKERSSSSS!!!!!
Kiss
Alive! surely...
That Nirvana unplugged thing is one of the worst performances by a band I have ever heard. A junkie losing his voice in front of a band who haven't played those (admittedly great) songs on acoustic instruments before.
HurricaneTommy
Stop trying to be contraversial...
Kurt Cobain's voice sounds amazing at that show and the performance was spot on.
You do not have a clue, just being a wind-up merchant.
Dude
I'm not trying to be controversial. I've always thought this since the day I saw it on the telly. And I'm a Nirvana fan!
I think "uplugged" is weak too
Kurt almost phones in his performance and he's right Dave and Kris seem totally out of their element. Plus all of his obligatory pandering to his influential artists. It was boring at first and just sad now.
^^ How could I forget??
That and Tokyo Anal Dynamite by The Gerogerigegegege
The Who - Live at Leeds
.
Squarepusher - Ultravisitor
though he has blurred the lines on whether it was completely live, but you can hear the crowd on most tracks.
none of it was live
he just piped on crowd sounds as part of his mischievous "yeah, i'm making PROPA music innit" statement
A packet of seeds
Throwing Copper
.
the microphones live in japan
or mount eerie live in copenhagen
Yes!
So many of their songs sound far better on this album.
Universe conclusion FTW.
Live Seeds
Apart from the dodgy Nina Simone cover, it's flawless.
Ignore them all
you were right the first time, it's Spiritualized
Tom Waits - Nighthawks at the Diner
it's sort of live
bob dylan
his 'albert hall' live twin sets are brilliant. wilco are immense live and kicking television is a good document of that, i love weld by neil young too.
^ definitely
Dylan
has to be
Live After Death - Iron Maiden
what about
Daft Punk - Alive.
yes yes.
something else
neil young - live rust, rust, live at massey hall
wilco's is pretty good
miles davis - four and more/my funny valentine
bill evans - sunday at village vanguard
frank zappa - ycdtos volume 2
dylan live 1966
radiohead
i might be wrong ep
Miles!
Dark Magus...
fuck there's so many
If we are talking Neil
surely it's Weld?
Thin Lizzy - Live And Dangerous
the most badass album ever?
'Live Rust' or
maybe 'It's Alive!'. Apart from a few exceptions not a fan of live albums.
Judas Priest
Unleashed in the East. Live in Tel Aviv, I think.
^ The Priest, absolutely.
Also 'if you want blood' AC/DC
Live after Death by Maiden is awful - avoid.
ORB LIVE 93
Is a favourite of mine.
It's not an album, but I love the Ziggy Stardust live at the Hammersmith Apollo DVD.
Rock n Roll Circus by the Stones
and yes the Bad Seeds live album is terrifying with much harder versions of Henry's Dream tracks than those which appear on the studio album.
Eels live with strings...
and 2nd the spiritualized/RAH and Wilco motion...
'Thunder Down Under'
- Hot Snakes.
(It's technically a live album).
Miles Davis
Black Beauty- Live at Fillmore West is SICK.
and Wilco yes.
or Keith Jarrett Vienna Concert.
Primal Scream - Live In Japan
Live In Japan is fantastic and full on.
Miles Davis - Live At Fillmore East 1971 or Dark Magus
Johnny Cash - San Quentin & Folsom Prison
James Brown - Live At The Apollo
plus the aforementioned ones by Daft Punk, Spiritualized, MC5 and a big shout out for the Stones Get Yer Ya-Ya's Out which was the first live album I bought. The version of Midnight Rambler on that is sleazy.
Jerry Lee Lewis
Live At Star Club - pill poppin' rock n roll magic
LIVEAGE
LIVEAGELIVEAGELIVEAGE
maybe
jeff buckely - l'olympia
wilco definately too, and maybe motion sickness by bright eyes
Daft Punk
Alive 1997/2007 anyone?
ministry
in case you didn't feel like showing up.
yes
that Alive 2007 is amazing. elsewhere, Hawkwind's Space Ritual is also brilliant
Frank Sinatra - At the Sands, with Count Basie
Televsion - The Blow-Up
Johnny Cash - Live At San Quentin
Jeff Mills - At the Liquid Rooms, Tokyo
kick out the jams
not bad for a debut album
Also, Sam Cooke At The Harlem Square Club
is great
can't believe no one's mentioned...
johnny cash at folsom prison
they have
and anyway it's not as good as San Quentin
mogwai
Government Commissions.
you got told.
Tom Waits - Big Time
Jeff Mangum (Neutral Milk Hotel) - Live at Jittery Joe's.
Life Without Buildings
I like the LWB album...
but the lead singer is really fucking annoying between songs don't you think?
hmm
I dunno, it's quite endearing, I know what you mean though.
Rocket From The Crypt - R.I.P.
Life Without Buildings
Live at the Annandale Hotel.
mainly because I can't find the studio album anywhere.
Who Live at Leeds
Best live band best preformance bob Dylans Albert Hall gig is prety good too
NIN
And All That Could Have Been
Duke Ellington
Live in Paris 1959.
Revolting Cocks
"You Goddamn Son Of A Bitch"
Metallica S&M
fools.
Kiss - Symphony
Kiss with orchestral accompaniment in a stadium of some sort in Australia playing all the hits.
Talking Heads
'The name of this band is talking heads'. Get the cd version with extra tunes. This band were the fucking dog's bollocks live and this album is amazing.
For those who say 'but what about Stop Making Sense?' - I acknowledge the awesomeness of that live record too and the film is jaw dropping but 'The name of this band is talking heads' is my personal pick of the two. Fucking great.
^yup
I like the first disc the most
Velvet Underground 1969
bit of a cliche but this lp is easily the best, you hear people bored with them, they go all over the place and the version of 'what goes on' fuelled 80s indie music for years (10)
love the name of this band as well
p.s. new to here so couldnt work out how to post other than replying to the last comment
UFO - Strangers in the night
plus Kiss - Alive and If you want blood, like what was said.
Black Flag - Live in '84
There's a few that spring to mind...
Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds - Live Seeds : raw, unhinged and savagely brilliant, the best version of 'The Mercy Seat' is found here.
Pink Floyd - Pulse : arguably the definitive version of several of their classics appears on Pulse, especially 'Comfortably Numb', in which Gilmour's guitar solo transcends mere human emotion.
Daft Punk - Alive 2007 : proving that two guys in robot masks and a couple of laptops can be more viscerally entertaining than any ammount of 'real bands'
Nirvana - Live from the Muddy Banks of the Wishka : the only Nirvana album I will ever own. They were not a studio band, they belonged on stage, tearing it up. 'Aneurysm' on this is neck-strainingly powerful.
Neil Young's Weld Album
is one of the best live albums I've ever heard.
Queen - Live Killers!
You know its true!
Yeah but.....
....the shows themselves were just so fucking awesome that the recordings served no other purpose but remind those present how it was - as stand alone 'live' records they weren't really that good.
Made In Europe
Deep Purple, much better than Made In Japan...
Slayer - Live Undead
funniest "audience" noises ever