I'm sure this has been discussed here before, but I couldn't find a dedicated thread using the search.
What live versions do you think of as the definitive versions of songs, maybe even to the point of not listening to the studio version much anymore?
The Who- I Can't Explain (Live at Leeds)
Gentle Giant- Free Hand (Playing the Fool)
Genesis- I Know What I Like (Seconds Out)
Marillion- Basically anything off Fugazi was better live on Real to Real/Brief Encounter
Wilco- Handshake Drugs (Kicking Television) and Impossible Germany (Ashes of American Flags) Nels Cline makes all the difference. I know he was on the studio version of Impossible Germany, but his solo on the DVD version of that track is one of my favorite solos ever.
Caravan- I prefer most of the For Girls Who Grow Plump and New Symphonia repertoire as it appears on Live at Fairfield Hall, but especially "Virgin on the Ridiculous"
Soft Machine- Teeth (Grides)
But this whole thread could be about King Crimson tracks:
Exiles (Providence show from the Great Deceiver)
Talking Drum/Larks II (either from the Night Watch or Vrooom Vrooom, depending on my mood)
Pictures of a City (Summit Studios)
Lament (Live at Mainz)
Cirkus (Either Detroit '71 or Chicago '17)
Easy Money (depends on what improv you prefer, but I like the composed section best on The Night Watch)
Waiting Man (Almost every live version is fantastic, but I guess either long version from Munich '82 or one from Absent Lovers)
Indiscipline (Vrooom Vrooom with Belew, Meltdown for without Belew)
Frame by Frame (the stupidly fast version on London '96 or maybe the Mastelloto/Harrison madness from Chicago '08)
Anything from Construkction of Light (Heavy Construkction)
Neurotica (Chicago '08 or Vrooom Vrooom if I want to hear the sound of the entire world burning)
21st Century Schizoid Man (gulp...Earthbound? It is certainly thrilling. When Boz, or whoever it is screams like 9 minutes in, when they transition into the unison section from the sax solo I could just run through a brick wall)
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