Which, happily, is included on The Fillmore Concerts, though the wiki does say the songs are remixed from when they were on At Fillmore East, and presumably Eat A Peach. I guess get the 6 disc set, The 1971 Fillmore East Recordings, for the definitive version.
Vanilla Ice – Extremely Live. It captures the intellectual gravity of his work in a way no studio album could.
Interesting bit of Frampton/KISS live album trivia: Apparently the guys from KISS used Frampton’s equipment to do the overdubs on “Alive!”.
In a 2011 interview, Peter reacted to stories that his album had a bunch of studio stuff “flown in”. While he admitted a couple of parts had to be fixed because of technical problems, he said
“…on Frampton Comes Alive! the rule was, if it didn’t make it to the tape, then we can redo it because it needs to be done. If it made it to the tape, and it sounds good, we leave it. So nothing was overdubbed on that album at all that wasn’t absolutely necessary…being known as a live performer, I’m not going to go into the studio and overdub.** If you want to say that, say that about Kiss Alive, because they borrowed my guitars and my amps to do those overdubs.**”
**The P-Funk All-Stars **- Live At the Beverly Theater
If you’ve never had the chance to see George Clinton/Parliament/Funkadelic live, this is probably as close as you’re going to get. About 100 minutes of their full 3 hour set, featuring a lot of jams and medleys; it’s not just note-for-note live versions of studio songs, which most live albums are, and I think are totally pointless.
Allman Brothers: Fillmore East (Duane Allman’s masterpiece)
Zappa:** Just Another Band From LA** (Zappa’s greatest band; Howard Kaylan delivers the best male vocal performance in rock, with great support from Mark Volman)
Whom: Live At Leeds (Keith’s isolated drum tracks would be an equally great record)
Simon and Garfunkel: Concert in the Park (too good to last but what a reunion. Perfection, if only for one night.)
The Concert For George (George getting the tribute he deserved)
Dan Hicks and His Hot Licks Where’s The Money? Perfection.
Damn it. I left one out:
David Lindley and El Rayo-X: El Rayo Live A mini-album, only six tracks. String mastery by a Living National Treasure.
You could always go with The Name of This Band is Talking Heads, particularly the extended, remastered version with full concerts. Stop Making Sense is perhaps more polished, but the former album includes the Remain in Light-Adrian Belew version of the touring band, which IMHO is peak Talking Heads.
Plenty of favorites in here already, so off the beaten track slightly I’ve been listening recently to Television Live at the Old Wardorf. Good if you like that sort of guitar noodling. Which I do.
The deluxe edition of REM’s Murmur includes a live show from Larry’s Hideaway in Toronto in 1983 that’s excellent if you like early REM. There are a couple of bootlegs that are just as good, perhaps most notably Return of the Rickenbackers also from 1983 in Boston’s Paradise theater.
And just since I mentioned the Paradise theater, that reminds me of another fine bootleg that was recorded there - XTC from 1980.
Just thought of Gratitude by Earth, Wind and Fire. Another fine album that I don’t think has been mentioned.
Not my favorite type of music, but I like Johnny Cash live at Folsom Prison.
A little June Carter goes a long way, but I think that’s the kind of album that makes a live album something more than just a poorly recorded studio album. Not necessarily the audience reactions but the way the performers feed off of that reaction.
Yes; this is important.
“Billy the Mountain” is cute and clever, OK. But “Magdalena” is too triggery for many a child sex abuse survivor (the narrator does, however, cheer Magdalena with “Right on!” for resisting the abuse). Roxy & Elsewhere has less comedy material and more jams. With Ruth Underwood and Chester Thompson, no less.
In case anyone wanted to know the greatest live album of all time, it’s John Coltrane’s Live at the Village Vanguard.
I’m not much of a fan of live albums, and this is one of the few that I own. Great stuff. “Xanadu” blows away the studio version.
I haven’t listened to this in years, need to go pull it out of storage…
Good call. In my view, the short running time works in its favor, as live albums can become tedious to me.
‘Back to the Bars’, Todd Rundgren
James Brown Live at the Apollo.
Jerry Lee Lewis Live at the Star Club, Hamburg
A little surprised that no one has mentioned **Woodstock **(the soundtrack).
Maybe because (IMO) most of the performances aren’t very good?
Two more: ‘One More From the Road’, Lynyrd Skynyrd and ‘Reach Up and Touch the Sky’, Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes.
I agree with you that Roxy & Elsewhere is arguably the better of the two albums, but I just don’t like it nearly as much. BTW, I had the pleasure of seeing Zappa (in San Diego) when the lineup included BOTH Ian and Ruth Underwood, the two best instrumentalists to ever play with Frank. (IMO)
As much as I like JABFLA, I often wish the vocals were in foreign language. The musicianship on tha album is stellar, especially Kaylan and Volman, but more often than not I have to ignore the content of the lyrics. Although the music is extraordinary, the lyrics for Magdalena are of especially and profoundly disturbing, attempting to make fun of a failed attempt at incest. I often tune out the content and imagine Howard’s vocals as non-verbal guitar sounds.