Good Live Al***

I do remember Songs in the Attic by Billy Joel.
A very good live vinyl.

Jackson Browne - Running on Empty
Joni Mitchell - Shadows and Light (double album)
Eric Clapton - Unplugged

A few of my favourites. The first two benefit greatly from being pre-digital recordings. Running on Empty still gets my vote as the best live rock recording ever.

Shadows and Light features a great band, including the incomparable Jaco Pastorius and Pat Metheny. The record is worth owning for Metheny's short but luminous solo on side 2 alone.

Like nearly all of Joni's recordings there's no overblown bass, and the recording gives an excellent sense of the venue. Whenever I put it on I always end up playing all four sides.

The Clapton is basically an acoustic blues album and is also very good, despite the built-in studio hum on some tracks.

Any of them provide ample reason for owning a turntable and show up the CD versions for the anaemic travesties they are.

If you have a day to spare and if this isn't pushing the realms of live you could try Springsteen's Live 1975-85 box set.

Otherwise Neil Young's Live Rust is great - especially the contrast in acoustic and electric from My My Heh Heh (Out of the Blue) to Heh Heh My My (Into the Black). Great stuff. He also did well Unplugged as, surprisingly to me, did Nirvana - not sure if either are available on vinyl though.

Peter

Rory Gallagher:

Live in Europe and Irish Tour '74

both superb - especially 'I could'o had religion' on the first; and 'A million miles away' and 'Walk on hot coals' on the latter.

Enjoy,
James

Joe Jackson's Body & Soul album. Ok, it's not quite live in the truest sense, but it says in the liner notes that joe was getting annoyed at the "over produced" sound of so many albums.[hear hear]. It was recorded in a masonic lodge in new york (so according to a mr.d.brown, joe is officially now an illuminati ), & relied on a stereo pair of mikes, + some close miking for balance. The album was apparently done in one or two takes with the band playing together live, although some elements were re-recorded to minimise sound leakage. It is a fairly early example of direct-to-digital recording, & is a little cold sounding (imho), but the ambience of the venue, & the togetherness of the band does come through, I feel.
Or maybe the "concert for bangladesh" box-set? 1971, clapton/dylan/ravi shankar/harrison etc.
matt.

Dzihan & Kamien Orchestra: Live in Viena

Boz Scaggs live.

Zappa/Mothers Roxy & Elswhere,
The Allman Brothers Band At Fillmore East
DCT

quote:

Originally posted by David Tribe:
The Allman Brothers Band At Fillmore East

How could I forget that one!

An excellent choice, indeed.

Dub Syndicate featuring Akabu and Bim Sherman - Live At The Town and Country

King Curtis 'Live at Filmore west'.

Neil Diamond 'Hot august night' double album from Mobile Fidelity.

The Name of This Band is Talking Heads - Talking Heads, if you can find it is a great collection of early output up to 1982'ish.

Jono

Bob Dylan--Live at Budokan
Good quality recording on vinyl.
Peter Frampton--Frampton Comes Alive

Rock of Ages - The Band
Various Allman Brothers
If you want blood ... - AC/DC

2nd the Talking Heads shout, still have vinyl but Rhino did a nice job of repackaging and enhancing for CD

various jazz albums - Monk, Davis, Coltrane

Not sure if it's still available, but John Lee Hooker live at the Café Go Go is awesome

The Who: Live at Leeds
Velvet Underground: Live MCMXCIII ( too bad this does not come in vinyl, but the CDs are exellent )

Bob Seger "Nine Tonight"

Dire Straits "Alchemy" - 1984
Deep Purple "Made in Japan" - 1973

Pixies - All Over The World

quote:

Originally posted by manicatel:
Joe Jackson's Body & Soul album. Ok, it's not quite live in the truest sense,

In this spirit, I'll recommend Joe Jackson's "Big World" album which is quite live in the truest sense. And I can recommend the more conventional Joe Jackson live album "Live 1980-1986". I have both albums on vinyl and they ar eboth musically and sonically excellent.

Another good-sounding live album is "nocturne" by Siouxsie and the Banshees.

And another entry in the "concert-hall-as-studio" category: King Crimson's "Starless and Bible Black". The sound quality on the original UK Island issue (ILPS 9275) is good enough to fool listeners into thinking it was recorded in the studio. Unfortunately, something went wrong in the remasetring process when the album was resissued on Polydor (2302 065). The tape hiss on "Trio" on the copy I heard was particularly annoying.

Pictures at an Exhibition by ELP, especially the version on Mobile Fidelity (MFSL-1-031) if you can find a copy, but the original vinyl copy is very fine.

[QUOTE]Originally posted by bazz:
Shadows and Light features a great band, including the incomparable Jaco Pastorius
____________________________________________________________________________________________________

Likewise Weather Report's 8:30, beautiful recording, shouldn't be difficult to hunt down a second hand copy.
Ditto, any live Zappa. Always immaculately recorded.

quote:

Originally posted by Malky:
[QUOTE]Originally posted by bazz:
Shadows and Light features a great band, including the incomparable Jaco Pastorius
____________________________________________________________________________________________________

Likewise Weather Report's 8:30, beautiful recording, shouldn't be difficult to hunt down a second hand copy.
Ditto, any live Zappa. Always immaculately recorded.

Malky - much as love I FZ, I wouldn't recommend all of his live albums without reservation - I'm not keen on Just Another Band From LA, for example. However, Live at the Roxy and Elsewhere is great and my favourite FZ live album.

I suppose you're right. I was thinking more about quality of recording rather than Frank's challenging tunes.

Paul Butterfield - LIVE

Please stop with those F'kin Pixies! That's got to be a bad joke.

David Bowie BBC Radio Theatre London June 27, 2000 on the Limited edition 3 cd set of Bowie at the BeeB.

/Gunnar