Do we really know what "Live" music sounds like?

Most live music I have heard has sucked, especially rock music, utterly dreadful....big over blown booming bass...way way too loud....saw imagine dragons a few years back, sounded mostly awful. Marron 5 at the TD garden sounded a little better....However, the Boston symphony Holiday pops concert at Boston’s Symphony hall sounded fantastic. Ahhhh the good old days! Just a short two years ago! Insane....

Live music used to be the preferred method for street beggars. 

Some were darn good too. Now you just need a #1 black felt tip marker

and some folded cardboard and you can make more than the people

at MacDonalds in less time.

Can tell the folks who read the article.

enjoying the answers and the non answers.

love this stuff. 

@secretguy nailed it. I’ve got an hour or two (entire life) of listening to live music. 
What we hear recorded is always subject to the mics (brand, type, etc) any amplification at all, placement of mics and post production. There are a million other variables as well. But, it doesn’t matter. Good sound, is good sound. That is somewhat in the eye of the beholder, but the general baseline is pretty universal. Some people listen better than others, some people just prefer what they prefer. Sometimes this game is just too analytical and we forget to just get absorbed in the moment. When that is easy to do, then good sound is what you have.

live music comes in many forms

music can be performed live but amplified by p-a systems - electric/synthesized instruments are of course processed at the outset, that is their sound...

to me this explains why there can often be such divergent tastes and sonic preferences in reproduced music - different people can have vastly different reference experiences for ’live music’

some smaller venues let you hear some unamplified music mixed in with amplified (in a jazz club for instance, if you are sitting near the artists)

it is reasonably rare that one gets to hear major artists perform live yet unamplified, but you can hear such naturally performed live music with local artists, acapella groups, street artists, smaller professional performance venues, classical venues (chamber groups)