Favorite live albums

Some of my favorites, in no particular order…

Little Feat - Waiting for Columbus
I have never been a huge Feat fan, don’t own any of their studio albums, but holy crap if this isn’t one of the best live albums capturing a band at their peak, then I don’t know what is.

Genesis - Seconds Out
Recorded on the first couple of tours after Peter Gabriel left, and the last couple of tours before Steve Hackett left. Hackett’s guitar work on this album is absolutely phenomenal, especially the solo on “Firth of Fifth”, which still gives me chills every time I listen to it.

Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit - Live from Alabama
I just started listening to Jason Isbell a few years ago after hearing lots of good things about him. Lots of great songs, both solo and from his Drive By Truckers days. The band sounds tight, and the cover of Neil Young’s “Like A Hurricane” to close it out just blows me away.

UFO Strangers in the Night

Allman Brothers Band Live at Fillmore East

Get Yer Ya/Ya’s Out / The Rolling Stones

Get Yer Ya/Ya’s Out / The Rolling Stones

Stop Making Sense - Talking Heads

Tweet!! Flag on the play. There are so many studio over-dubs on that album I don’t think it qualifies any more.

My choices: Live at Carnegie Hall - Renaissance

Live at Madison Square Garden - Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band

Live At Leeds - The Who

LIVE ALIVE - Stevie Ray Vaughan and Double Trouble

I’m so glad I got to see him once. Majestic Theater in San Antonio (3rd row:D). I still have my album, in a climate-controlled storage unit along with a badass stereo system. Makes me wish I had it all here at the house, especially with the current lockdown

I know that many people don’t like them, but I’m a fan of good live albums. Some of my favorites:

Van Morrison - It’s Too Late To Stop Now

My favorite live album of all time. Stellar band, stellar repertoire and perfect sound.

The Ramones - It’s Alive

A tour de force of 28 songs in 53 minutes.

AC/DC - If You Want Blood

Another tour de force, but with longer songs than the Ramones. All the sleaze, all the grit, and all the punch AC/DC with Bon Scott had to deliver.

Neil Young with Crazy Horse - Weld

Perfect noise.

I could go on.

The Kinks – One for the Road

Cheap Trick – Live at Budokan

The Who – Live at Leeds

The Allman Brothers – At Filmore East

Deep Purple – Made in Japan

The Band - Rock of Ages
I love watching The Last Waltz, but if I really want to listen to The Band live, this is the album.

Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band - Hammersmith Odeon London '75
Springsteen is great live, and both Live/1975-85 and Live in New York City are great albums, but this one just captures a busting out, still fresh and young Springsteen in an amazing way.

Peter Gabriel - Secret World Live
This is the only Peter Gabriel album anyone needs.

I love this album. I’ve only got the cassette. Honky Tonk Women is my favorite song of all time (he couldn’t catch me to tell me to slow down:)).

One of my musical phone-a-friends said there are five different versions of that song.

We got 13 posts in and nobody’s said: Dylan - Live At The Albert Hall?

Snippet.

j

PS: I know, I know, Manchester Free Trade Hall.

I concur for all of these.

I especially recommend the extended version of “Rock Of Ages” that includes the tracks they did with Dylan on these concerts. It was one of the very few concert appearances of Dylan between his 1966 world tour and the reunion tour with the Band in 1974, I think one of only five (the Woody Guthrie tribute with the Band in 1968, Isle of Wight with the Band in 1969, George Harrison’s Bangladesh concert in 1972 and the other one escapes me now)

Springsteen and the E Street Band at the Hammersmith is a killer live album. You can hear how they instantly grab the audience, an audience that hadn’t been familiar with their music, and they take the Hammersmith by storm.

Well, I don’t want to be ALWAYS the guy who plugs this album :D.

Michael Hedges - *Live on the Double Planet *

Be Bop Deluxe - Live! In The Air Age

Rory Gallagher Irish Tour '74
Hot Tuna Double Dose
Hot Tuna And Furthermore
Hawkwind Space Ritual
(Lots of Dead, can’t pick just one.)

Seconded. And after I have praised live albums by the Ramones and AC/DC, I don’t want to forget Motörhead’s “No Sleep Til Hammersmith”. A blast from start to finish.

No Sleep Til Hammersmith duly upvoted!

MTV Unplugged in New York by Nirvana