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What are the best live acts?


I’m not asking you to list your favorite concerts. I think that there is another thread for that. Rather, we shouldn’t judge pop bands solely on the basis of their recorded music. Some bands are simply better on stage than they are in the recording studio. I’ll cite the following for their consistent ability to put on a great live show.

1. The Cramps
2. The Ramones
3. Toots Hibbert (touring as Toots and the Maytals, even though Toots fired the original Maytals some time ago)
4. GWAR
5. The UK Subs (crap music, brilliant live show)
6. AC-DC (when Bon Scott was their front man)
7. The Meat Puppets
8. Tom Waits
9. The Anti-Nowhere League
10. Van Halen (w/ David Lee Roth: I hate their music, but I saw them twice, and had a rocking good time!)
11. Iggy Pop
12. Ted Nugent (This man is the redneck Iggy Pop)
13. Joe Ely
14. The Butthole Surfers
15. The Clash
16. The Mentors
17. Nig Heist
18. Emmy Lou Harris
tweakgeek
danvetc
527 posts
 
David Allan Coe
Bruce Springsteen
Rolling Stones
Sammy Hagar (solo)
Moody Blues
Yes

Your local Symphony
zaikesman
3,017 posts
 
Re The Stones: I am of the opinion that their live shows for the past close to 20 years now have been prefunctory money-extracting operations of the most hollow sort. Pay your hundreds, see the legends. True, they do empty professionalism as well or better than anybody - and of course they have a huge advantage in material over the competition - but that's still all it is.

Duane: The Mentors were about a hundred times better live than they were on record!

Random thoughts, very incomplete:
Highest, most concentrated live energy ever released on a stage: The Bad Brains, circa late 70's - early 80's.

Bands I most wish I'd seen live: MC5, New York Dolls, Jimi Hendrix Experience, the original James Brown revue, and of course, The Beatles.

Bands I danced the most to: C.J. Chenier and his Red Hot Louisiana Band, Trouble Funk.

Band that meant the most to me to see live (many times): The Replacements.

For a good time, bands you should see live the next time they come to your town: The Dictators, The Flaming Lips, NRBQ, The Soft Boys (back from the grave), Sloan, The Fleshtones, The Swingin' Neckbreakers, Oxes.
prpixel
876 posts
 
Keb Mo, James Taylor.
tweakgeek OP
76 posts
 
While you still can, you should go see Otis Clay. That is, if real soul music is your thang. Here in Chicago, he gets booked into blues bars occasionally. His live shows are invariably better than those of the more common formulaic blues acts.

Not that it will do anybody any good now, but I should share my observation that The Minutemen always rocked the house in a most profound way.
zaikesman
3,017 posts
 
Tweakgeek, speaking of Otis Clay, did you catch the TV news feature (can't remember if was network or cable) last week about the resurrected career of Howard Tate?
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