I listened to my two faves last night back to back..."Live at Leeds" and "Rock and Roll Animal". And I hadn't seen this thread, either.
Top 10 Live Albums
What are your top 10 live albums?
Mine in no particular order are:
1. Live at the Fillmore East - The Allman Brothers
2. Band of Gypsies - Jimi Hendrix
3. Live at Leeds - The Who
4. Welcome Back my Friends to the Show that Never Ends - Emerson, Lake and Palmer
5. Skull and Roses - the Grateful Dead
6. Live Rust - Neil Young
7. Listener Supported - Dave Matthews Band
8. Live in Japan - Deep Purple
9. Jeff Beck with the Jan Hammer Group Live - Jeff Beck
10. The Song Remains the Same - Led Zeppelin
70 responses Add your response
Stones - Ya Ya’s 1970 Stones - The Brussels Affair 1973 (Great extended version of You Can’t Always Get What You Want) Humble Pie - Performance Rockin’ The Fillmore 1971 Allman Brothers - Fillmore East 1971 Allman Brothers - An Evening With The Allman Brothers Band - 2nd Set 1995 (Later version of the band with Warren Haynes) Genesis - Genesis Live 1973 Lou Reed - Rock N Roll Animal 1974 Mark Knopfler and Emmylou Harris - Real Live Roadrunning 2006 Graham Nash - Live: Songs For Beginners/Wild Tales 2022 Sia - Lady Croissant Live 2007. Great early Sia. Traffic - On The Road 1973 Steve Winwood - Winwood Greatest Hits Live 2017 |
Here are more favorites I forgot to add. Couldn’t keep my list to just 10. Lou Reed - Rock N’ Roll Animal Jefferson Airplane - Bless Its Pointed Little Head Grateful Dead - The Closing of Winterland: December 31, 1978 Cowboy Junkies - Long Journey Home Bob Dylan / The Band - Before The Flood Miles Davis - Agharta The Jimi Hendrix Experience - Live At Monterrey The Yardbirds - Five Live Yardbirds Cat Power - Sings Dylan (The 1966 Royal Albert Hall)
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I can't resist adding a few more... Santana Lotus M. Orchestra Between Nothingness and Eternity volumes I, II J. Hendrix The J. Hendrix Concerts, Albert Hall Experience Assembly of Dust The Honest Hour Pentangle Sweet Child Neil Young Masey Hall, Carnegie Hall 1970 Ry Cooder Show Time Otis Rush So Many Roads Bob Dylan (with The Band) Live 1966 Richard Thompson Live From Austin, TX. plus a bunch more live shows available on his website Dire Straits Live at the BBC John Prine Live On Tour Joni Mitchell Archives box sets all include previously unreleased live material Free Live |
Joan Baez in Concert, V1 and V2 And on a completely different note, the first full length stereo recording still extant: Beethoven’s 5th piano concerto, The Emperor, performed in Berlin during an air raid, by Gieseking and conducted by Artur Rother, or Varese Sarband. An historical note: I understand that the Telefunken tape recorder was ’liberated’ and shipped to the USA for reverse engineering, which formed the backbone of the modern recording industry. But I could be wrong. |
Damn, you folks got just about all of them....but not quite. Don't think these have been listed yet: Lot of live Dead stuff, but I didn't see Live Dead mentioned. Jerry Garcia & Merl Saunders - The Complete Keystone Collection Garcia, Grisman & Rice - The Pizza Tapes (does playing in a living room count?) Al DiMeola - Live at El Mocambo Allman Brothers - An Evening With the ABB Bob Dylan 30th Anniversary Concert @ MSG The Band - Rock of Ages Butterfield Blues Band - East West Live Danny Gatton & Robert Gordon - The Humbler Derek and the Dominos - The Layla Sessions (live in studio) Gram Parsons All-Star Tribute - Sessions At West 54th King Crimson - Live in Central Park 1974 Old & In The Way (Garcia, Grisman, Rowan, Clements & Kahn) Quicksilver Messenger Service - Live at the Fillmore Tom Waits - Nighthawks at the Diner And last but not least - Woodstock
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@tony1954 +1 "Irish Tour 74" definitely is in my Top 10 of Pop/Rock live recordings of the 1970's. FWIW did you forget about "Lotus"? |
@wharfy - You got it! Lots of good stuff on there not to mention the horn section. |
This is not a ranking based on which is the best. It is just the order in which they entered my almost 70yo brain. 1. "Live at the Fillmore East" by The Allman Brothers Band (1970). Simply the best. 2. "Live Johnny Winter And" by Johnny Winter And (1970) Johnny at his best with Rick Derringer on guitar and future Stevie Ray Vaughn "double Trouble" Randy Jo Hobbs and Bobby Caldwell. 3. "It's Too Late to Stop Now" by Van Morrison (1974). Underrated double live album when Van was like an Irish James Brown. 4. The Last Waltz" The Band and guests (1976) Fabulous tribute concert for arguably the greatest Canadian band ever. Joni Mitchell, Neil Young, Mavis Staples, Bob Dylan, Van Morrison, Eric C;apton, etc. 5. "Live Stock" Roy Buchanan (1975) One of my personal top ten guitarists of all time playing some of his best stuff. Had the pleasure to see Roy at his peak in a small club back in the day. Such a sad end to his story. 6. "Greatest Hits Live" Boz Scaggs (2004) Good musicians and Boz's fabulous voice and songs. So smooth. 7. "Live From Austin, TX" David Byrne (2007) Saw this tour and band live in the same small club as I saw Rory Gallagher, Roy Buchanan, Woody Herman, Tom Petty, Tim Buckley, Buddy Rich, Moby, Los Lobos, etc. Byrne, his band and the accompanying string section had the place dancing all night. 8. "17/11/70" Elton John (1971) Was lucky enough to see this first major tour and paid a pre-Ticketmaster ticket price of $3.50. Elton blasts off to become a rocket man. One of the greatest live shows ever. Over the top glitz and showmanship.The early 1970's version of Taylor Swift. 9. ”Get Yer Ya-Ya’s Out!” The Rolling Stones (1970) The Stones when the really were the greatest rock n' roll band in the world. 10. "Irish Tour '74" Rory Gallagher (1974) Last, but no where near to least. Saw him four times and each one was a blistering tour de force by the greatest guitarist ever. This double album captures him perfectly. Do yourself and watch Tony Palmers film by the same name released in 2011. One of the top five live concert movies ever made. |
i like live albums that feature new material and/or do something different than merely rehash studio recordings. from this perspective, good live albums would be jackson browne’s "running on empty", joe jackson’s "big world" and the oft-mentioned fillmore east and band of gypsies. also lou reed’s "rock and roll animal", which completely redoes (and outguns) his studio takes. for whatever reason, i’ve never liked alot of the mtv unplugged stuff (i thought nirvana’s was overrated and clapton’s and dylan’s were pretty awful), but that’s just me. |
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I have noticed a bevy of new "live" titles recently released that were recorded by radio stations or are otherwise far from audiophile quality. A slew of Van Halen concerts releases come to mind. One needs to be careful when perusing at your local record store as some seem to hide the fact that they are of lesser recording quality. |
Ween - Live in Chicago Rebelution - Live at Red Rocks Blaze Foley - Live at the Austin Outhouse Waylon Jennings - Waylon Live Van Morrison - Astral Weeks live Lou Reed - Rock n Roll Animal Tom Petty - Live at the Fillmore Paul Simon - The Concert in Hyde Park Ben Harper - Live from Mars (compilation) |
Lots of great choices so far. I'm amazed at how different my list is today, compared to what it would've been 10 - 20 or 30 years ago. JEFF BECK - "Performing This Week....Live at Ronnie Scott's" JACKSON BROWNE - "Live Acoustic, Volumes 1 & 2" CHINA CRISIS - "Acoustically Yours" CRACK THE SKY - "For Catherine" DADA - "Live Official Bootleg (vol 1)" HUNTERS & COLLECTORS - "Under One Roof" JOE JACKSON - "Live in New York" (Summer in the City) LOU REED - "Perfect Night, Live in London" RENAISSANCE - "Live at Carnegie Hall" ROXY MUSIC - "Live at the Apollo" STEELY DAN - "Alive in America" THE THE - "The Comeback Special" TRAFFIC - "On the Road"
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