Are we taping this?
<tap, tap> is this thing on?
I didn’t know Live even put out that many albums to begin with. Let’s see, there was Throwing Copper and that Secret Samadhi one…
I’ll start:
Allman Brothers Band Live at Fillmore East
Runner up:
J. Geils Band: Full House
Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band- Live 1975-1985
The Band: Rock of Ages.
Runner up:
Little Feat: Waiting for Columbus.
The Who - Live at Leeds
Jane’s Addiction - Jane’s Addiction
Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds - Live Seeds
Eurythmics Live: 1982-1989
Grateful Dead: Europe '72
Ted Nugent: Double Live Gonzo
Neil Young: Rust Never Sleeps
Yes: Yessongs
Emerson, Lake and Palmer: Ladies and Gentlemen
If we should limit ‘live albums’ to performances recorded at a single venue, or even a single show… one of my treasured vinyls is:
John Coltrane: Live at Birdland
Talking Heads Stop Making Sense
“B.B” King Live at the Regal
Paul Kelly Live, May 1992
Oh, and Motorhead No Sleep 'til Hammersmith
Eric Clapton, Just One Night
Allman Brothers, Live at the Fillmore East
Grateful Dead, Live Dead
Pulse by Pink Floyd. All live, all fantastic.
MTV Unplugged, by Nirvana / Eric Clapton / Neil Young.
MTV Unplugged Alice in Chains - even more poignant considering recent events.
UnLEDed - It might be a travesty for ‘original’ fans but I loveit! It’s new and different, and it’s the closest thing I’ll ever get to the real thing! Damn me being born into the wrong decade.
nefertari.
WTH?! What happened to my OP? Oh well, here it is again…
The House of Blues (hob.com) has released their Top 50 Live Albums of All-Time list. A superb list with some interesting selections. Judy Garland?! Kiss Alive?! My only grip is that The Last Waltz should be in the Top 5.
Man, if I had half of these CDs in my collection I would be one happy camper. 
Go Here for the Top 50 Live Album page. Click the ‘Top 50 Radio’ button to hear a countdown of the albums (2 tracks from each album).
Thoughts? Opinions?
**01 Jimi Hendrix
Band Of Gypsys (1970)
Born out of a contractual obligation with his record label, this crowning achievement in live music found Jimi Hendrix playing with a new set of musicians, helping create new boundaries, setting the standard for guitar playing even decades later.
02 Various Artists
Woodstock: Three Days of Peace & Music (25th Anniversary) (1995)
So The Doors didn’t make it to the show, and The Grateful Dead were almost electrocuted. At least it wasn’t Fred Durst on a piece of plywood doing it all for the nookie.
03 Johnny Cash
At Folsom Prison (1968)
As the first of two concert recordings that the original man in black put on for the inmates of prisons, this performance resonates with an amazing intimacy that Johnny Cash achieves by playing to the men as his peers rather than simply criminals.
04 Bob Dylan
Bootleg Series Vol. 4: Live 1966 Royal Albert Hall (1998)
Thirty-two years after the event, this former bootleg concert, legendary for Dylan’s raucous electric performance and the negative reaction it elicited from the politically charged crowd, finally appeared in a two CD set in 1998.
05 Miles Davis
The Complete Live At The Plugged Nickel 1965 (1965)
Two nights of unbridled jazz interpretations gave birth to this epic Miles Davis collection, originally released in abbreviated separate three volumes. The complete performances from both nights finally saw the light of day as an 8-disc box set released in 1995.
06 B.B. King
Live at the Regal (1965)
Listen to the crowd cry out blissfully as the King of Blues, B.B. King, reels his audience in with intimate banter and some of the most passionate blues delivery in the history of the form.
07 Allman Brothers Band
Live at Filmore East (1971)
Pushing the definition of a live show into the realm of profound experience, The Allman Brothers Band’s Live At Fillmore East is an album rock, jazz, funk and jam bands all tip their hat to.
08 Bob Marley & The Wailers
Babylon By Bus (1978)
“Jah! Rastafari! Ever living, ever fearful, ever sure, Salassi I the first…Yeah…Yeah…Rastafari, ever living…Rastaman vibration!” So says Robert Nesta Marley as the lights go down and the show begins.
09 Nirvana
Unplugged in New York (1994)
Candles, rocking chairs, a cracking voice and a song written by Leadbelly: these were the ingredients to the best live performance of the 1990s.
10 The Who
Live at Leeds (1970)
Most bands would kill for the creative evolution The Who’s seminal live recording Live at Leeds has undergone. Mirroring their own artistic growth, the second and third re-issues of one of the loudest concerts ever peel back the perceived skin of a band whose talents were limitless.
11 The Band
The Last Waltz (1978)
12 John Coltrane
Live at Birdland (1963)
13 James Brown
Live at the Apollo Vol. 1 (1963)
14 The Ramones
It’s Alive (1979)
15 Aretha Franklin
Live at Filmore West (1971)
16 Muddy Waters
At Newport (1960)
17 Talking Heads
Stop Making Sense (1984)
18 Otis Redding
In Person at the Whisky A-Go-Go (1968)
19 U2
Under a Blood Red Sky (1983)
20 Peter Frampton
Frampton Comes Alive (1976)
21 Little Feat
Waiting For Columbus (1978)
22 Ray Charles
Live (1973)
23 The Rolling Stones
Get Your Ya-Ya’s Out (1970)
24 Stevie Ray Vaughan
Live Alive (1986)
25 Grateful Dead
Live Dead (1969)
26 The Doors
Absolutely Live (1970)
27 John Lee Hooker
Live at Newport (2002)
28 Etta James
Rocks the House Live (1964)
29 Lynyrd Skynryd
One More From the Road (1976)
30 Neil Young & Crazy Horse
Live Rust (1979)
31 Joe Cocker
Mad Dogs and Englishmen (1970)
32 Cream
Live Cream, Vol. 1 (1970)
33 KISS
Alive! (1975)
34 Cheap Trick
Live at Budokan (1979)
35 Various Artists
The Monterey International Pop Festival (1967)
36 Albert King
Livewire/Blues Power (1968)
37 Sam Cooke
Live At The Harlem Square Club (1985)
38 Frank Sinatra
Sinatra at the Sands (1966)
39 Eric Clapton
Unplugged (1992)
40 Elvis Presley
Aloha From Hawaii (1973)
41 Ella Fitzgerald
The Complete Ella In Berlin (1960)
42 Judy Garland
Judy at Carnegie Hall (1961)
43 Billie Holiday
Jazz at the Philharmonic (1946)
44 MC5
Kick Out the Jams (1969)
45 Curtis Mayfield
Curtis Live! (1971)
46 Neil Diamond
Hot August Night (1972)
47 John Coltrane
Complete 1961 Village Vanguard Recordings (1961)
48 Bill Withers
Live at Carnegie Hall (1973)
49 Elvis Costello
Live at the El Mocambo (1978)
50 Commander Cody and His Lost Planet Airmen
Live From Deep in the Heart of Texas (1974)**
Obligatory mention of Frampton Comes Alive
Gil Evans Orchestra: Live at Sweet Basil, v. 1 and 2.
Jenny
your humble TubaDiva
who was there.
Damn…forgot the Dylan 1966 Royal Albert Hall Concert! Put that one up for me in the place of Rock of Ages. The Band’s on it, anyway, except for Levon.
I didn’t realize we could pick jazz albums…I’ll say:
Stan Getz and J.J. Johnson at the Opera House, Chicago 1957. Backed by Oscar Peterson, Herb Ellis, Ray Brown, and Connie Kay. Looks like it should just be a standard blowing session, but for some reason EVERYTHING came together that night…and this album has emerged as possibly the PERFECT live jazz album.
Runner up:
Jazz at the Philharmonic 1946. Featuring Charlie Parker, and rotating combos with Dizzy Gillespie, Howard McGhee, Buck Clayton, and Al Killian on trumpets, Lester Young, Coleman Hawkins, Willie Smith, and Charlie Ventura on saxophones, Mel Powell on piano, and Lee Young and Buddy Rich on drums. This was the first JATP show that Bird played…the ballad on the set is “I Can’t Get Started,” and Bird follows Lester Young’s solo. After two stunning choruses, the other horn players refuse to follow him, resulting in the first bass solo ever heard at JATP.
Honorable mention:
Sonny Rollins; The Solo Album. Recorded in concert in the Sculpture Garden of the Museum of Modern Art, New York, July 19, 1985. An entire program for tenor sax, no accompaniment. Nobody but Sonny would have the cojones to pull THIS one off, and for close to an hour, too.
Thin Lizzy - Live and Dangerous
Tubes - What Do You Want From Live
Kiss Comes Alive
Rush - All the World’s a Stage
I probably wouldn’t have any use for any of them anymore, except for perhaps the Tubes release, but they were all great live sets.
Oh, and Sloan - 4 nights at the Palais Royale
Portishead - Live at Roseland, NYC
Both great efforts.
I’ll second The Band: Rock of Ages and Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band- Live 1975-1985, and add Simon and Garfunkel: The Concert in Central Park