The Best Live album

Waltersalas, I've heard a lot about the Village Vanguard as far as a jazz venue, are the performances recorded there usually of high quality, music/sound wise?

My favorites are:
1) Lou Reed - Rock'n Roll Animal
2) Climax Blues Band - FM Live
3) Marshall Tucker Band - Where We All Belong (only disc 2 is live)
4) Mountain - Twin Peaks
5) Grateful Dead - Reckoning
6) Allman Bros. - At Fillmore East

1&2 were recorded at the same venue - Howard Stein's Academy of Music NYC.

Jsonic,
Having a bit of inside info, the reason 5/8/77 hasn't been released as a Dick's Pick is that they try to shy away from shows that have really high quality recording already in circulation. That being said, they'll eventually get around to releasing just about everything givben enough time.

I own a number of these recordings, so the only one I'll add to the list is Simon & Garfunkle's "Concert In Central Park". The album has some great music, and is exceptionally well recorded for a live, open-air concert.

I remember reading a huge thread about that 5/8/77 show saying how it never happened. The argument was that it was too perfect in both performance and sound quality and was merely a compilation of different songs from other shows. It was pretty entertaining, but when you listen to the show you can tell that every track has the same sound and couldn't possibly come from different recordings from different venues.