^ Yeah, that's my favorite live album, bar none. I've never listened to it in the context RC was asking about, though.
^ Yeah, that's my favorite live album, bar none. I've never listened to it in the context RC was asking about, though.
I think the Yes Wembley 10-28-78 recordings fit the bill. This is exactly what I remember Yes sounding like when I first saw them in 1979. I think the recording captures the sound of the band in the arena, all the electricity in the air.
Still my favorite live recording ever.
Bill
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Is that a boot?Originally Posted by Sputnik
I agree with many of the recommendations above and will add some live prog I enjoy.
crack the sky - live sky
Genesis - the original live one with Gabriel in costume on the cover
Happy the man - live
And if course the live porcupine tree albums
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A gentleman is defined as someone who knows how to play the accordion, and doesn't.
A classic boot.
"The White Zone is for loading and unloading only. If you got to load or unload go to the White Zone!"
^ Actually saw Neil at Pine Knob (suburban Detroit) on the Rust Never Sleeps tour -- one of the great concerts I've seen.
As far as the recording, the audience is omnipresent throughout the songs, but the piano and acoustic guitar parts are recorded quite well...
And oh, the wonderful feedback and distortion. Good lord, I'm surprised he didn't fry the amps...
"And your little sister's immaculate virginity wings away on the bony shoulders of a young horse named George who stole surreptitiously into her geography revision."
Occasional musical musings on https://darkelffile.blogspot.com/
As was said, Frank was one of those guys who did a lot of futzing around with his live stuff once he was back in the studio. If memory serves he admits in the liner notes of both Roxy And Elsewhere and In New York that there's overdubs on both those records.
I also recall reading that at some point, he got into the habit of running a direct from his guitar into the tape machine when doing multi-track recording, so that he'd have a completely clean guitar track that he could mess around with. He could do things like route the direct signal to whichever effects and amps he wanted, to get guitar tones that had nothing to do with what the audience heard on the night. He'd also do stuff like getting a really nasty overdriven sound (like you might get from a cranked Marshall) and a really clean tone, like you'd get from a Fender amp or something, and pan them hard to either side of the stereo field.
Another trick he did a lot of his 80's records was routing his guitar through two flangers, 180 degrees out of phase which other, so as one is sweeping up, the other is sweeping down, and again, pan the two tracks hard across the stereo field. There's a few tracks on the Shut Up N Play Yer Guitar set where you can hear that.
Another one I remmeber was the track When No One Was No One on Guitar. That turns out to be from a version of Zoot Allures from the Cologne, West Germany show on the 82 tour. Now, if you ilsten to the album, the solo ends up with doing a bit of looping. First you hear this tweezed whammy bar noise getting looped, then adds this other shorter thing on top of it, and it goes for a bit before it abruptly stops. Now, if you listen to the audience tape from the show, you can also hear Frank soloing for a few bars over the loops, which he chose to mix out of the official release.
Probably teh only Zappa live things that don't have any overdubs are Make A Jazz Noise Here, Best Band You Never Heard In Your Life, and the majority of the material on the You Can't Do That Onstage Anymore releases, as well as most of the posthumous things. I know some of the posthumous were actually prepared by Frank before he went home, so those may have some futzing around, but I suspect anything else doesn't.
What about the firecracker during Wind Of Change on Frampton Comes Alive?As for the live album thread does anything beat Humble Pie "Rockin' the Fillmore" where a bottle drops on the floor at the beginning of "I Walk on Gilded Splinters"....
Or the guy in the audience on You Can't Do That Onstage Anymore Vol. 2 who yells out the request for Whipping Post, and Frank actually humors the guy? I remember actually reading Frank's Guitar Player interview in 1983 when he was on the cover (with his D'mini Strate), and where he explained why he was doing Whipping Post as an encore. So when the You Can't Do That Onstage Sampler double LP came out, I was already familiar with the story.
I agree. Another one I'd nominate is the original bootleg version of The Rolling Stones' Brussels Affair (taken from a radio broadcast). The mix very much captures a 'live' atmosphere, and I can't detect any obvious overdubs compared with- say- ...Ya Ya's Out.
Among official albums, I always thought ELP's Pictures... had a great live sound.
Great performance, I agree, but I'm personally not keen on the sound of any of those Isle Of Wight releases. Very 'dry', IMHO.
I don't think much of this one was live at all. 'Ball And Chain' is. (Though not 'The Fillmore' as I've read, it's from Winterland.)
Ten Years After - Undead (1968)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Undead...s_After_album)
If the idea was to list musically good livealbums, there have been long threads about this before, but I understood that it was about presence, live feel, hearing the audience, etc.
^Quite a few 60s live recordings in club/theatre venues have great atmosphere (though not always 'audiophile', for all that it matters...certainly doesn't to me). See also Five Live Yardbirds, The Big Three At The Cavern EP and Georgie Fame's R&B At The Flamingo or in the US, BB King's Live At The Regal, James Brown's Live At The Apollo etc. Certainly in the case of the UK ones I mentioned, the recordings were very basic (and were only ever released in mono mixes) so there's little danger of tampering!
Last edited by JJ88; 03-02-2020 at 04:35 AM.
Genesis-wise, I prefer the mix of the Shrine 1975 concert from which six tracks were used for radio broadcast (and bootlegged) to the one which was released on their Archive box. The latter was, obviously, overdubbed to hell as well. The radio broadcast mix is much more exciting and has an 'in the hall' feel, some of it can be heard if you press 'Live Lamb' at the bottom of this page. (Only MP3, but you get the picture.)
http://www.genesismuseum.com/
Last edited by JJ88; 03-02-2020 at 10:11 AM.
My favorite live albums are Magma - Live and Slapp Happy - live in Japan, but they don`t fit the requirements in the first message...
I was thinking directly of Frank Marino & Mahogany Rush's live album.
Not a Frampton fan, but the siound and crowd in Do You Feel Like We Do is amazing. Don't know if it's been sonically cured, but one feels like we're present in the middle of the crowd.Frampton Comes Alive - Peter Frampton (let the tomato throwing commence)
Yup, can't help but wondering if Judas Priest's Unleashed In The Studio would sound like if it hadn't gone major sonic surgery
And as said above, while I love Comes Alive's sound, I can't help but thinking it was heavily tinkered with.
Fantastic performance (especially that it was filmed too) and one of the most entertaining drum solo ever.
These are definitely winners in my book.
Absolutely. Of course it helps that I saw that tour twice (with the Road Eyes), but TBH, I never spin it anymore, because I play the film instead
Yeah, it's cool (but too jazz-a-billy for TYA), but I prefer the Recorded Live (love SiT and RnRMttWord, which fill a lot of the double album)
I'd love a live album recorded after Cricklewood Green, though.
my music collection increased tenfolds when I switched from drug-addicts to complete nutcases.
The two volumes of Gil Evans “Live At The Public Theater” are long time personal reference recordings I go back to often. The Bill Evans Village Vanguard sessions are low hanging fruit for great live recordings. Everyone owns a version of “Waltz For Debbie”.
John Mayall “The Turning Point” is a killer. Vinyl cut by Bob Ludwig.
ELP - Pictures At An Exhibition (UK black label Island pressing). Exceptional live mix of a rock band.
^Good call on the Mayall. His very first album was also live but I can't remember much about that one!
There's only one live recording of Mayall's Bluesbreakers with Clapton- from the Flamingo- and it sounds quite amateurish. It's essential listening though as ISTR every song played was never recorded by them in the studio.
#19 hrmpff !
#12 gurgle!!#19 hrmpff !
"please do not understand me too quickly"-andre gide
Dear Lord, how could I have missed Live Rust?!?
Cobra handling and cocaine use are a bad mix.
Like this one?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Live_a...more_East_1970
Plenty of them, but referring to your criteria they all predates prog (or even mainstream) rock when recordings were still made acoustically with a few high quality microphones feeding a minimalist mixer board and then to a pro analog 2 (or single) track tape recorder without any extra processing. Early audience live rock recordings all sounds terrible, I don't know a single one which is listenable. Later on and up to now live rock recordings were made using multitrack techniques and heavily remixed/reprocessed in studio (sometimes with "added" ambiance and fake applause !), at the same time killing all the naturalness and "be there" feeling you're looking for. The 3 records you mentioned as an exemple although musically and technically excellent,don't really fit your request (maybe Jerry Goodman is the closest). For the best and most natural live recordings you should explore Jazz/Vocal/Instrumental/Folk/Light Classical/Classical genres from the 1950-1960 era (sorry, no prog to be found there). One of the best recommendations I can find right now is Harry Belafonte's Live At Carnegie Hall (on RCA Living Stereo series), a true classic still unsurpassed.
Last edited by Mr.Krautman; 03-02-2020 at 12:10 PM.
Not prog but two of my favorite live albums, one has already been mentioned,
Little Feat-Waiting For Columbus
UFO-Strangers in the Night
Both of these were pretty much my introduction to each band and when I delved deeper into each's studio output, I found that most of the time the live versions were far superior.
Eric: "What the hell Hutch, it's all Rush, what if we wanted a little variety?"
Hutch: "Rush is variety, Bitch! Rule number one: in my van, its Rush! All Rush, all the time...no exceptions."
From "Fanboys" 2009.
My bad. Do you have the RL cut?#19 hrmpff !
PFM Cook.
Yes Yessongs
And with 4 discs, we get our money's worth.
UFO is prog adjacent.
"Well my son, life is like a beanstalk, isn't it?"--Dalai Lama
It is appalling !#12 gurgle!!
This band was the first international artist I saw live.
Together with some of my classmates (aged 12) !
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