I’m listening to Live At The Fillmore East, March 1971 · The Allman Brothers Band. I’m thinking this is it.
I know the Who’s Live at Leeds and Led Zeppelin’s The Song Remains the Same (1976) are up there. At Folsom Prison – Johnny Cash comes up, not my favorite, but I respect and get it.
Frampton Comes Alive! was so big at the time, but I feel like the album and even Frampton are somewhat forgotten now. It was a really good album that I haven’t heard in decades.
The 5 at the top of the Rolling Stone list are 5 super-big names.
#1 - “Live at the Fillmore East” - Allman Brothers #2 - “Live 1975-85” - Springsteen/E Street Band #3 - “Live/Dead” - Grateful Dead #4 - “Stop Making Sense” - Talking Heads #5 - “You Had To Be There” - Jimmy Buffett
“Woodstock” gets an Honorable Mention.
The list changes daily. Some stay in the Top 10 for no other reason than I was there when they were recorded. Buffett, for example.
Follow up question for the OP: What about live recordings that weren’t major studio releases? Bootlegs? The entire freaking Grateful Dead library of concerts?
Hmmm…from that list probably Talking Heads’ Stop Making Sense. But I practically wore out a vinyl copy of Live at the Filmore East when I was a teen, so I certainly think it’s up there. But I’ve listened to the first in the past year, the second not in decades.
I really enjoy listening to live shows, not so much the actually going to them part . So I like downloading bootlegs of at least passable quality (doesn’t have to be pristine, but I can’t deal with genuinely shitty audio). We were talking about REM over in the Hall of Fame thread and I was fairly recently listening to this somewhat “famous” 1983 bootleg that had a partial release on vinyl. Best live album? Hardly - not even in spitting distance. But the kind of stuff I like to listen from time to time.
Another dinosaur act - I often see Van Morrison described as a lousy live artist. But I suspect the real truth was that he was a very inconsistent one. I’ve always had a sneaking affection for “…It’s Too Late to Stop Now…” which caught him in perhaps rare form.
“Alchemy live” Dire Straits. Sultans of Swing and Telegraph Road from that concert are the two best live performances in history, so the album has to be the best.
Live At Leeds tops the list for me, crackling noises and all.
Other favorites include Humble Pie’s Performance: Rockin’ the Fillmore, Made In Japan by Deep Purple, Alive! by Kiss, Michael Hedges’ Live On The Double Planet, Get Yer Ya Ya’s Out! by The Stones.
And I can’t leave out Frampton Comes Alive!…having been at Winterland one of those nights I can personally vouch for what a great show it was.
Speaking of Winterland, one of those ‘lost Jimi Hendrix’ recordings that got released after his death was Jimi Hendrix Live at Winterland. I listened to Hendrix tunes on the radio since I was a kid. I owned his albums for years, and loved them. But hearing his reworkings of his classics in this live venue, and all the different places he took the songs, was mind blowing. I was in my mid 20s by the time I realized “this is why they call Hendrix a genius”.
The Allman Brothers, Live at the Filmore East. Duane Allman at the peak of his powers, he’s transcendental throughout the album. Especially (for me) Statesboro Blues, Stormy Monday, and In Memory of Elizabeth Reed.
Simon and Garfunkel, The Concert in Central Park Even had they stayed together for any appreciable length of time they never would’ve matched this, much less top it.
Runners up for selected tracks:
Jefferson Airplane, Bless Its Pointed Little Head for 3/5 of a Mile in Ten Seconds, The Other Side, and It’s No Secret wherein Jack Casady is an absolute genius on bass guitar.
The Who, Live at Leeds for Keith Moon’s lunatic savant drumming on Substitute, Happy Jack, Summertime Blues, Amazing Journey/Sparks.
Agreed. Unlike most of the other bands on the list (and in this thread), which were well-known, and successful outside of those live albums, FCA! was Frampton’s singular moment, and magnum opus; I would not be surprised if it outsold all of his other albums, combined.
Though I was far too young to have seen him at the original concerts (@blondebear , you lucky bastard!), I did get to meet Frampton when he visited the ad agency where I worked (such a great, personable, and funny guy), 15 or so years ago, and got to see him on the 35th anniversary tour for FCA! in 2012, where he performed the entire album, plus another hour or so of more songs.
I caught that tour at the show at Wente Vineyards. There was a group at a table up front who had a few too many glasses of vino and were talking all throught the set. At one point Peter started to introduce a song and stopped, the show, pointed at the group and said “This is MY concert and I’M talking now, so please SHUT UP!” That got a huge round of applause and resulted in a quiet table for the rest of the show.
I don’t want to included two Dylan albums, but both Before the Flood (with The Band) and Hard Rain are great. I have to include Live at Leeds on my list, as well as Zappa and The Mothers’ Roxy and Elsewhere.
. So I like downloading bootlegs of at least passable quality (doesn’t have to be pristine, but I can’t deal with genuinely shitty audio). We were talking about REM over in the Hall of Fame thread and I was fairly recently listening to this