The BEST EVER Live Recording

[rayc]

There was some discussion re live recording in the MP3 Mix Clinic with some interesting ideas re capturing the moment - "an artifact" as opposed to creating something - "a piece of recorded music".

What do you consider the best "major label release" live audio recording?

I only use "major" so that there'll be a wider range of people likely to have heard & therefore be able to enter commentary on, any particular recording.

To start the ball rolling I offer the LP mix/master of the Concert for Bangladesh - particularly While My Guitar Gently Weeps.

I recently bought the DVD & much prefer the plastic version.
Cheers
rayC

 

[Cloneboy Studio]

Not to rain on your parade but most major label "live recordings" are so processed, overdubbed and re-recorded that they may as well be considered to be studio recordings with added crowd noise. Not *ALL*, but most.

 

[rayc]

Cloneboy,
I agree - we've even had a few in Australia that were actually "live" in the studio with 20 or so members of the fans club as the audience with overdubs & all the processing that come with that yet sold as LIVE. I agree.
I did forget to mention 801 Live as particularly good though.
If I recall correctly DAVID LIVE actually bagged an engineer in the lioner notes for losing some feeds that were then o'dubbed.
Cheers
rayC

 

[BigRay]

Alison Krauss and Union Station Live ..pure gold.

 

[michaelst]

If you want the very best solos vocal with guitar recording, I'd recommend Marshal Crenshaw's "I've Suffered for My Art, Now It's Your Turn". Live recording at the Stone Pony. Incredible fidelity and performance.

 

[Joepie]

Dire Straits - On the Night

 

[macmoondoggie]

Yanni live at the Acropolis. Don't laugh.

 

[formerlyfzfile]

Frank Zappa's Make A Jazz Noise Here and also The Best Band You Never Heard.

100% completely live with no overdubs of any kind.


Simply awsome.


-mike

 

[peopleperson]

Go ahead and chuckle at me all you want, but I'm gonna go wholeheartedly with Kiss Alive. A childhood favorite of mine, and to this day it kills me. I really don't give a flying shit how much Eddie Kramer went in a polished after the fact (neither does he, he's actually extremely proud of that record in interviews), and besides, I challenge anyone to find what really went down and what was overdubbed. The end result to me is still the most exciting live rock experience ever put on vinyl. An insanely fun and entertaining live record is way more important to me than accuracy will ever be. It's rock music for godsake, striving for perfection defeats the purpose. And don't forget that live records were disasters in the industry until Alive came out, and double live records simply didn't exist. At the end of the day, what one looks for in a live recording is a personal opinion. Me? I like excitement. To me, a rock concert and a musical performance are two very different things.

For the same reasons, I like the Who's Live at Leeds, and Humble Pie's live at the Fillmore an awful lot as well.

 

[PhiloBeddoe]

My fav by a lot is The Who Live at Leeds.

I recall reading an Eddie Kramer interview saying that Kiss Alive was the least live album he'd ever done and the only thing that was live was the drums. I don't care either though.

 

[MessianicDreams]

Stevie Ray Vaughan - Live at Carnegie Hall

 

[mrface2112]

Yanni live at the Acropolis. Don't laugh.

+1 there. it's one of the most open and pure sounding live albums ever. i'm not much of a yanni fan, but that album (and the percussion especially) gives me chills.

seriously--don't pan it til you've heard it.


cheers,
wade

 

[noisedude]

The Ben Folds solo live CD .... the songs come alive and you hear that he REALLY can play piano.

The Jeff Buckley Sin-é stuff for the same reason ... kicks the Mystery White Boy and L'Olympia releases.

 

[Nakatira]

Easy Made in Japan Deep Purple beats everything.

folowed by Uriah Heep live in Birmingham 73.

and Pink Floyd ... Pulse is great on as well

 

[demensia]

Jeff Buckley's live at sine-e could have been recorded through a fisher price my first tape recorder and it would still be the the most amazing live performance ever captured.

 

[noisedude]

Jeff Buckley's live at sine-e could have been recorded through a fisher price my first tape recorder and it would still be the the most amazing live performance ever captured.

I couldn't agree more!

 

[bigwillz24]

Alicia Keys - Unplugged

 

[davexxxxx]

The Allmans Live at the filmore east is still hard to beat even to this day!!!

 

[easychair]

Couple others-

Hendrix-
Band of Gypsies
In the West- unreal version of Little Wing.

Little Feat- Waiting for Columbus

Grateful Dead- Europe '72, Reckoning. Great stuff, from when they could still play.

davexxxxx mentioned the Allmans, the thing about that album and countless others by killer players in rock and jazz and blues or anything is that you know it wasn't anything special, they played that way night after night, for years, the album was just a slice of what they did.

 

[gordone]

Ditto!

Another great acoustic (and quite eclectic!) recording is Loreena McKennit's Live in Toronto & Paris.

Alison Krauss and Union Station Live ..pure gold.