Driving to work today the radio was playing “I Want You to Want Me” by Cheap Trick and it occured to me that I have only ever heard the live version from *at Budokan. *I have never heard the studio version of that song.
Same thing with “Do You Feel Like We Do” from Peter Frampton. I have heard the live version from Frampton Comes Alive!, but never the studio version*.*
What songs do you have that you have heard live versions of, but never the studio version*?*
I Want you to Want Me first came to mind. The studio version blows with over-produced sweetness. It needed the edge they brought live.
Same with Social Distortion’s Prison Bound. I didn’t notice the song off the album; I freakin’ love the Live at the Roxy Version. Huge.
I Want You To Want Me is what I came here to post. Eventually I heard the studio version of Ridin’ The Storm Out, I was in my 30s by then. I don’t recall ever hearing the studio version of the Dead’s Lost Sailor. (I couldn’t even tell you if the studio version segues into Saint Of Circumstance. For all I know, there isn’t a studio version.) That’s one that I can say with certainty that I’ve only ever heard a live version.
Bob Seger’s Turn the Page was originally released on his Back in '72 album. It pales in comparison to the live version we all know.
As a Deadhead, I have no idea where to begin; there’s just so many roads…
Because the Night by 10,000 Maniacs. I’m not sure they ever did a studio version - I think it’s only from MTV Unplugged.
It is only from MTV Unplugged. Merchant left Maniacs soon after their appearance on MTV Unplugged, so there was no studio version performed.
I’m thinking Apologies by Nirvana on MTV Unplugged myself. I don’t know if the rock stations around here play anything but the live version.
Also, Wonderful One by Page and Plant from No Quarter.
Years ago, I heard Pink Floyd in concert. For their encore, they did a nice little blues jam that was unlike anything else they ever recorded. It’s not on any of their albums.
Of course, there isn’t a studio version of “Mountain Jam” by the Allman Brothers.
Heart’s version of Led Zeppelin’s “Rock And Roll.”
Nearly all of Bob Seger’s albums prior to 1976 are out of print, so it’s rare to hear anything other than the Live Bullet versions from that era.
You weren’t kidding. Thanks for that link.
Don’t know if this counts, but it’s great! Rob Zombie covers Metallica’s Enter Sandman:
I heard a radio station play the studio version one time and the DJ mentioned how rare it was to hear that version.
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Same thing with “Do You Feel Like We Do” from Peter Frampton. I have heard the live version from Frampton Comes Alive!, but never the studio version.
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This would be equally true of “Show Me the Way” from the same album. The earlier studio version was released as a single (I have it) but did nothing. Then the live version was pulled as a single and was a huge hit.
The studio version of “Lost Sailor” is on Go to Heaven. “Saint of Circumstance” does follow it on the album, but the two songs don’t flow together as they did live.
Weirdly, because it’s a favorite song of mine, Eric Clapton’s “Tears in Heaven.” Also, although I’ve heard the studio version, I only have one of the live recordings of “Lola” - it starts off with a conversation with the audience about how they “weren’t going to do that one tonight” but they’ll play it “only if you join in on the chorus.” Halfway through it then switches to a disco version. 
How about actually live, rather than live recordings? I am sure most of us have heard a lot of songs played live that we can’t name, but I can name a couple.
In their early, pre-Bowie-influence days, Mott the Hoople use to encore with an instrumental version of The Kinks’ “You Really Got Me”. I heard them do it about 3 times. It does appear on, I think, their first album, but I have never heard that (presumably studio) version. I can’t imagine that it would work very well on record, whether it was a studio performance or a live recording, but it was terrific as the climax to their very energetic and exciting stage show - rock and roll stripped down to its bare minimum! Like punk in its simplicity and energy, but joyful rather than angry.
The last time I saw them, it was shortly before they finally had a hit with “All the Young Dudes” (Mott was expected to be the next big thing for a couple of years before that finally did it for them). Their act had changed quite a lot from the previous times I had seen them, and to my disappointment did not do “You Really Got Me”. I don’t think they did “All the Young Dudes” either, but what they did finish with was an odd version of “Mr Tambourine Man” that substituted bugle player for tambourine man. (I have no idea why.) I don’t think there is a recording of that, or if there is, I have certainly not heard it.
Coming back to live recordings, the whole of John Mayall’s brilliant The Turning Point was recorded live. I do not think studio versions of any of it exist. Also, probably all of us have only heard The Beatles’ “Get Back” and “Don’t Let Me Down” as live recordings from the rooftop concert. (Do these count, or does a studio version have to exist?)
The Doors Absolutely Live contains several songs that AFAIK they never released studio versions of, notably the notorious “The Celebration of the Lizard”. A studio version of part of it (that I have heard) is on their Waiting for the Sun album (IIRC), but it is far from the whole thing. I think that, technically, I also heard “The Celebration of the Lizard” live in concert, at the Isle of Wight Festival in 1970, but I was so far away from the stage at that point that it all sounded really quiet, and lost all impact.
Like most people, I have never heard the studio versions of the Frampton Comes Alive hits. However, as well as the once ubiquitous live recordings, I have also heard him play them live - at the L.A. County Fair in about 1998 (give or take a year or two).
Two others: “Maybe I’m Amazed” by Wings, and Jackson Browne’s version of “Stay”.
The familiar versions are studio recordings, made two days before the rooftop concert. A few of the rooftop performances were officially released on the Let It Be LP, but not these songs.
So my little four-year-old has been singing Bertha around the house for the past few days. I figured I’d play him the studio version (they usually have clearer lyrics). It’s on an early album, no, not that, or that (that’s too late), it must be … waitasecond… there’s no studio version? I knew there were tons like that, but Bertha?