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Great Live Albums


Celery Man

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Seems like a good time to note that the allman brothers live at the Fillmore East is 50 years old this year and nothing better has ever been pressed to vinyl. 
 

also means that the 50th anniversary of duane’s death is later this year. 
 

 

Edited by Pato del Muerto
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5 hours ago, Pato del Muerto said:

Seems like a good time to note that the allman brothers live at the Fillmore East is 50 years old this year and nothing better has ever been pressed to vinyl. 
 

also means that the 50th anniversary of duane’s death is later this year. 
 

 

I have that. I also have Live at Ludlow Garage and Live at the Atlanta International Pop Festival. I also have/had several live bootlegs. You know what sucks about each of them? A half hour long self-indulgent Mountain Jam that doesn’t really do anything for me. (And on the Atlanta discs you get two of them!) Talk about giving a bad name to drum solos. Are you telling me you listen to that Mountain Jam every time you listen to the album? Or do you skip past it?

The best one they did was with the Dead at Watkins Glen on 7/28/73.

It’s a great album. I wouldn’t say it’s the best ever. But anything with “Live at the Fillmore” attached to it is going to be solid. It’s no better than Derek and the Dominos Live at the Fillmore (which is awesome). Or Miles Davis. Or any number of Dead shows...from both coasts. But it’s hard to use the Dead when talking about live albums because they were a live band and have more live releases than most bands have albums and even more freely available live bootlegs than that.

Also, The Last Waltz is one of the greatest live albums/films/performances of all time. 

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I used to have a VHS tape of the Allmans on MTV Unplugged. That was the first time I ever saw Warren Haynes. He was dressed nicely and his hair was long and pretty. (Come to think of it, I might be misremembering that and it may have been a concert on HBO.) I got to see him differently in bars and small clubs when he was playing with Gov’t Mule back when Allen Woody was still alive. Man, those shows rocked. They jammed hard.

But speaking of MTV Unplugged, this is one of my favorite live albums:

 

Edited by WhatTheBuck
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Four more discs. After Robert Fripp went years without performing or recording, he finally won his lawsuit against the record label over the rights to his music. He put a new King Crimson together, a double trio format adding Trey Gunn and Pat Mastelotto to the 80’s Crimson lineup of Fripp, Belew, Levin, and Bruford. Those were heady times. At one point my King Crimson collection consisted of just the ten CD’s that were available. Then new Crimson material started coming out, I got to see them live, and Robert opened up the vaults. The first live release was The Great Deceiver, all from ‘73 and ‘74 which I consider to be the peak era of rock music. The music made during that period is pretty amazing and, if not ‘73 or ‘74, ‘’72 and ‘75 come pretty damn close. I now own dozens and dozens of Crimson discs, many of them live and spanning four decades. But it’s worth noting which shows an artist releases first. These are really, really good. (Also, the studio albums King Crimson released in ‘73 and ‘74 were Larks’ Tongues in Aspic and Statless and Bible Black, respectively, and they’re both awesome.)

8346_king_crimson_the_great_deceiver.jpg

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I finally watched Last Waltz not too long ago and enjoyed it but it was extremely difficult for me to make it through Joni Mitchell's bit. Maybe it's a generational thing, maybe I've just suffered through too many talentless people trying to do that kind of thing but goddamn I can't stand it. I need to listen to some of The Band's other live stuff as well.

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31 minutes ago, Celery Man said:

I finally watched Last Waltz not too long ago and enjoyed it but it was extremely difficult for me to make it through Joni Mitchell's bit. Maybe it's a generational thing, maybe I've just suffered through too many talentless people trying to do that kind of thing but goddamn I can't stand it. I need to listen to some of The Band's other live stuff as well.

If you can’t dig Coyote then there’s something seriously wrong with you.

 

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5 minutes ago, Rip76 said:

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I originally got a copy of this recording from a friend in Cleveland who won a CD copy in a radio contest (from WMMS - home of the buzzard). Rush later made it an official release. But I don’t think it included the interview with Donna Halper. It also featured their first live performance of Working Man.

 

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Also, notice that Rush jammed back then. Not in the sense of full band improvisation like the Dead, the prototypical jam band. But in terms of stretching out solo passages by a few bars. Everyone did that back then. Eventually Rush would become a band that played beat-for-beat and note-for-note identical reproductions of the album versions of their songs. And when I was in high school I thought that was a sign of a good band. And, granted, a lot of bands couldn’t even manage to do that. Neil Peart (who wasn’t the drummer in ‘74) was amazing but it wasn’t until late in his life that he tried to loosen up and depart from his metronomic precision. I respect that he tried. I don’t think he ever really got there. His forte was technical precision. Groove and swing were never his thing. 

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25 minutes ago, WhatTheBuck said:

Also, notice that Rush jammed back then. Not in the sense of full band improvisation like the Dead, the prototypical jam band. But in terms of stretching out solo passages by a few bars. Everyone did that back then. Eventually Rush would become a band that played beat-for-beat and note-for-note identical reproductions of the album versions of their songs. And when I was in high school I thought that was a sign of a good band. And, granted, a lot of bands couldn’t even manage to do that. Neil Peart (who wasn’t the drummer in ‘74) was amazing but it wasn’t until late in his life that he tried to loosen up and depart from his metronomic precision. I respect that he tried. I don’t think he ever really got there. His forte was technical precision. Groove and swing were never his thing. 

He did not get there, and I’m totally ok with that.

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21 hours ago, Pato del Muerto said:

Seems like a good time to note that the allman brothers live at the Fillmore East is 50 years old this year and nothing better has ever been pressed to vinyl. 
 

also means that the 50th anniversary of duane’s death is later this year. 
 

 

This is the correct answer.

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4 hours ago, Rip76 said:

He did not get there, and I’m totally ok with that.

He was still a musical genius. May he rest in peace. First concert I ever saw was Rush on the Signals tour at Notre Dame in 1982. I got up at 5 AM, skipped the first half of school and drove to South Bend to wait in line at the box office to buy tickets. My mom didn’t know about it. I was a good student and none of my teachers whose classes I missed ever said a word about it. I did that a few more times while I was in high school to see Styx, REO Speedwagon, Billy Joel, and Journey. There was a sense of adventure about it that inspired me to a long and illustrious concert going career. 

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3 hours ago, GopherRock said:

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Speaking more about Zappa and the ‘88 tour, Frank met Johnny Cash one day at the hotel and Johnny was going to come sit in with them but his wife got sick and he couldn’t make it (so the story goes, anyway). But the band worked up Ring of Fire in the afternoon and performed it that night. (Pay no attention to the video, that’s from a different performance and if I cared at all I could tell you what it is. I’ve probably posted it elsewhere on this board before.)

Zappa also met Sting on the ‘88 tour and he did show up to perform Murder By Numbers with the band.  I’ve definitely posted this before. (NSFW; there’s one F-bomb.)

 

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1 hour ago, WhatTheBuck said:

He was still a musical genius. May he rest in peace. First concert I ever saw was Rush on the Signals tour at Notre Dame in 1982. I got up at 5 AM, skipped the first half of school and drove to South Bend to wait in line at the box office to buy tickets. My mom didn’t know about it. I was a good student and none of my teachers whose classes I missed ever said a word about it. I did that a few more times while I was in high school to see Styx, REO Speedwagon, Billy Joel, and Journey. There was a sense of adventure about it that inspired me to a long and illustrious concert going career. 

The Signals tour is the tour I would have most liked to have seen.  Signals may be my most cherished Rush album.  I was 10 when signals came out, and to this day, it still crushes me.

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11 minutes ago, Rip76 said:

The Signals tour is the tour I would have most liked to have seen.  Signals may be my most cherished Rush album.  I was 10 when signals came out, and to this day, it still crushes me.

The lasers blew me away. My ears were still ringing when I went to bed that night. 

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Wow. No one? Really? Maybe it's too cliche of an answer. 

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If we were doing greatest songs recorded live Do You Feel has to be very very high up the list... one of the coolest artist and audiences exchanges ever put on vinyl. Just a masterful read of timing and energy accompanied with some near flawless picking. 

Also this - which I might put #1. 

Neil_Young_Rust_Never_Sleeps.jpg.895d85bdd0fbe629ca64be398f9bf6ef.jpg

Edited by ztejas
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The Signals tour is the tour I would have most liked to have seen.  Signals may be my most cherished Rush album.  I was 10 when signals came out, and to this day, it still crushes me.

Saw it as a sophomore in hs. Very cool.
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10 hours ago, Rip76 said:

The Signals tour is the tour I would have most liked to have seen.  Signals may be my most cherished Rush album.  I was 10 when signals came out, and to this day, it still crushes me.

 

10 hours ago, WhatTheBuck said:

The lasers blew me away. My ears were still ringing when I went to bed that night. 

 

8 hours ago, tbone_ said:


Saw it as a sophomore in hs. Very cool.

That was my first concert in either 7th or 8th grade, Golden Earring opened and played 15 minute versions of Twilight Zone and Radar Love and not sure what else. Rush sounded exactly like the album 

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12 hours ago, Rip76 said:

The Signals tour is the tour I would have most liked to have seen.  Signals may be my most cherished Rush album.  I was 10 when signals came out, and to this day, it still crushes me.

Saw them in Hartford CT on that tour:

  • The Spirit of Radio
  • Tom Sawyer
  • Freewill
  • Digital Man
  • Subdivisions
  • Vital Signs
  • The Camera Eye
  • Play Video
  • Closer to the Heart
  • Chemistry
  • The Analog Kid
  • Broon's Bane
  • The Trees
  • Red Barchetta
  • The Weapon
  • New World Man
  • Limelight
  • Countdown
  • 2112 Part I: Overture
  • 2112 Part II: The Temples of Syrinx
  • Xanadu
  • La Villa Strangiato
  • In the Mood

Encore:

  • YYZ
  • Drum Solo
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