What’s the appeal of live concert albums? The recordings are inferior in many ways and, if you’re a big enough fan to buy them, you probably already have the studio versions of many of the songs. Are they meant to recreate the concert experience? I can’t imagine they come close to the real thing, unless you were at the actual concert that was recorded. Do you love the given band so much you scoop up every version of their music you can find?
Enlighten me.
Well, some bands don’t just try to copy their studio sound, they improvise, jam, and do things differently. I’m not a huge fan of live albums, but some are good.
The Doors are a prime example of free-form jamming and improvisation.
Kiss had 10 times the energy on their infamous live album compared to their studio work.
Peter Frampton (obviously) recorded a phenomenal live album. I have no idea what any of those songs sounded like on the studio version.
I’ve heard The Grateful Dead are good live, but I don’t really like their stuff.
Again, I’m not a huge fan, but some live albums have their place.
Sometimes, yes.
As leaffan said, many times the band does a different or extended version of their songs. There are a few live albums off the top of my head in which I prefer many of the live version of the songs to the studio versions- “Get Yer Ya-Yas Out” by the Rolling Stones, Jimi Hendrix Live at Winterland, Talking Heads Stop Making Sense (though that last one was kind of staged for a documentary, so it was just “live”.)
Depends entirely on the artist and the show.
The best live album I own is the P-Funk All Stars, Live at the Beverly Theater. They jam, they rock out, they play extended, altered versions of their songs jumbled together, and the recording captures the energy of the performance. You can hear them interacting with the audience, they make mistakes and start songs over, they improvise, it’s awesome.
But OTOH, IME most live albums are just the band playing songs exactly as they are in the studio recorded versions, which is pointless, and really just shameless money grab by either the band or the record company, or sometimes bands do it just to quickly fulfill a contract obligation.
For me personally I enjoy a lot of LIVE albums because there is more energy is some of the Live performances.
For example: Iron Maiden’s Live After Death
Specific two songs -
Hallowed be thy Name - faster, louder and much more energetic than the album version.
Phantom of the Opera - more energetic, a bit slower than the album version, a meatier sound, and Bruce Dickinson on vocals instead of Paul DiAnno.
Another example from Maiden:
The Trooper from Death on the Road. The album version has their classic twin guitar harmony on the song, but with the newer Live versions and three guitarists, they add another layer to the harmony and I love the difference it makes.
Metallica’s Live Shit: Binge and Purge has the Justice Medley where they play portions of songs from the …And Justice For All album.
Lots of songs are just better live. Some of my favorites include:
Bruce Springsteen - “Live From NYC” The band gets to really stretch out on songs and take multiple solos.
Talking Heads - “Stop Making Sense” Lots of post-production sweetening, but the definitive versions of some songs. Much better than the studio versions
Jimmy Buffett - “Songs You Know By Heart” and others “One Particular Harbor” needs the crowd.
Lots more. Concert albums rock!
Check out Harry Chapin’s “Greatest Stories Live” and compare those performances with the relatively lackluster studio versions of many (not all) of the same songs. Some musicians really don’t come alive until they are in front of an audience.
I don’t know about concert albums so much, but when I was a kid I was heavily in to live show tape trading. These weren’t professional recordings (usually) but audience recordings. You could get a recording of almost every show on a tour if you tried hard enough.
Collecting these tapes was hard work and you just ended up with a bunch of tapes with the same songs but each show was slightly different and had something unique about it.
It was a big score when you’d get a tape with some non-studio song on it, or catch the band playing a song they never played live or noodling around extra or just saying something funny.
If a professional live album had elements like this, then it’d be worth buying. I think the few I have, I bought pretty much for the non-album songs.
And yes, what everyone else said.
What they said - sometimes the songs and the overall live experience just work.
The classic example is Cheap Trick - their studio version of I Want You to Want me was sugary, over-harmonized blech. But their Budokan version is rocking, with Rick Nielsen’s guitar out front - it’s simple pop song, so that rocking tone gives it a bit more oomph. That’s what broke the band in the US.
Sometimes a live album is filler fluff and/or poorly recorded; sometimes it is a source of cool alternate versions of songs you love; sometimes they can be the source of the “definitive” version of a given song; and sometimes the overall performance is a wonderful time capsule. It varies…
For me and for my friends who have live albums, often they’re the first album of that band that they buy. It’s like a “greatest hits”, with the added energy of a live concert.
Do radio stations have any business playing live versions? They almost never play alternate/extended/improvised versions. It’s usually just a second-rate copy of the studio release. I heard a concert version of “Evenflow” the other day. Took me a bit to realize it was a live cut. On the one hand, it shows that Pearl Jam is tight. On the other hand, then what’s the point?
Some stations do, some don’t. Several make a point of airing entire concerts.
The Allman Brothers Live At Fillmore East ought to do the job. I really, really wish I’d seen the band before they lost Duane…
I did see Townes van Zandt, many times. His Live at the Old Quarter, Houston, Texas is great because his studio albums were often overproduced. And his later recordings tend to display the ravages of time.
Plus one side of “Eat A Peach,” which finishes the concert.
are they a jam band? do they do good solo bits?
some bands get on fire live with the energy of a crowd.
The J. Geils Band took years to learn how to made a good studio album, but they were amazing in concert. Something like Full House does a much better job of showcasing their talent.
And listening to 11/17/70 will show you a side of Elton John you’ve never seen: a hard-rocking shouter in the Jerry Lee Lewis mold.
Never owned more than a few live albums - mainly for my fave bands at the time. I remember liking All the World’s a Stage, simply because I was hugely into Rush at the time. But UFO’s live album was a snooze. Never really understood the appeal of Frampton Comes Alive. These days I like Social D in any form I can get them - live or studio. But other groups that I’ve enjoyed many times in person - SCOTS for example - I prefer my personal memories of moments from great shows, over recordings of shows I wasn’t at.
Had a number of Springsteen bootlegs at one time back in the early 80s, but those are someting different from what the OP asks. The bootlegs were fun for his stories, some extended jams, and otherwise unrecorded material. Perhaps because of my bootlegs and having seen several of his shows, I was quite underwhelmed when the authorized live album came out.
Seemed to me like most live albums either appealed to hardcore fans, or had only a song or 2 which were worth listening to - which never made them a good expenditure of my limited album budget.
Social D’s version of Prison Bound off Live at the Roxy is the essential version - good lord I love the tone of their guitars.
As for UFO, I love Strangers in the Night and prefer most of those tracks to the studio ones. Figuring out Rock Bottom and pulling it off decently was a big deal at the time as a young guitar player. I am a fan but get that YMMV…
Just want to second “Phantom of the Opera” off of Live After Death… it’s the definitive version for me, too.
Another great example is the Afghan Whigs. Although an ‘alt-rock’ band, the lead singer was a huge soul and R&B fan, and they’d often intersperse different covers into breaks in their songs each night. It was always fun to hear if they pulled it off or not.