Live Albums

Well, I was driving home earlier, listening to random tracks from the ipod... when up pops this rather rocking piece of blues... knew it at once, it was Statesboro Blues from the Allman Brothers Live at the Fillmore double album. The Allmans are a band I have always loved, and to hear them at their best, you need to hear them live, so this album is both a fine remembrance and a fine album.

                
It did, however, make me think on the value of the double live albums which virtually everyone had to release in the early 70's... and are still fairly common currency even today... i was thinking this: the live album.... a blessing or a curse.?

Once again I have decided you can't generalise, for some artists the live album is a fine album critical part of their legacy, for others it is an inferior greatest hits album, for a third section of the music world, a contractual obligation to cover a lack of material... for so many more a serious error.

Whichever category it falls into, is it generally a fair reflection of the concert recorded.

I have a few examples...  for me the aforementioned Allman Brothers Band Live at the Fillmore East is a glowing example of the quality and music of the band, it flows, it has short sharp pieces, extended pieces and a couple of their extended jams, a fair representation of their set, a mixed bag of pieces, and taken and pressed untouched from the live recording. I think there are other albums that come into this category, most of the Grateful Dead live albums do it. There are others of course.... i would include especially Rory Gallagher's live albums in this list

I have a live Creedence Clearwater Revival album, it is a greatest hits set, all inferior versions to the recorded originals partly because John Fogarty was not in the band at the time. I also have a pukka greatest hits album, so never play the live one.

Live albums to cover lack of material, classic one comes to mind is the Rolling Stones Get Your Ya-Ya's Out... at the time they were clearly marking time, I think they lost the plot when they lost Brian, though Micky Taylor did a sterling job in his brief involvement, but they had nothing coming along, were not in a creative phase, so out comes a fairly miserable live album. The other may be the Eagles Hell Freezes Over... a bland rehash to cash in on their reunion when they didnt seem to be really together and had no creative spark.

The final category is the total disaster album... I would also include Ya Ya's in this category... down the years I have heard so many ill advised live albums, live albums by bands that simply should not get up on stage, should stay in the studio with the technology to help out. As I say, I have heard so many... just can't think of them now as I have hopefully put them out of my mind.... The one I cant excuse though is the John Lennon/Mothers of Invention farce that made disc 2 of Sometime in New York... to say that was appalling would be to praise it beyond it's worth

Then there is the question "How live is a live album". I recall a friend did a recorder weekend, which ended with a concert by the ensemble, a recorder orchestra, which i thoroughly enjoyed..... Obviously biased because of his presence, but I've played it to others without mentioning him and they have been quite impressed by it. However, the day after the concert, they all reassembled to re-record a number of bars, probably about 25 bits within the 1 hour concert.

Again, back to the YaYa's album, popular legend has it that all of the guitar solos were re-recorded in the studio, because they were all totally out of tune, and in some cases, the wrong key. 

In these cases the albums are not representative of the concert, and actually are a bit of a con. I am sure however that many live albums are rerecorded later.

I actually listened to a live album the other day (Sandy Denny - Gold Dust") where all the backing vocals were re-recorded for the album by people who had not played at the concert.

The other aspect of Live albums is banter... I love the John Sebastion live album because it has music I like, with typically Sebastian banter, which brings the concert closer to you. On the other hand, much as I love the Humble Pie Rockin' the FIllmore, the banter and exhortations to rock and so on sound banal and irritating sitting in your living room, while they work perfectly well in a concert hall. It certainly evokes the quality of the band live, and they were a live band rather than a studio band, there is a fair bit of that on Rory's Live in Europe, especially on the mandolin piece

So, there we have it, I have been philosophising on the live album lately... 

The other aspect of course now is the DVD... so many bands are releasing live DVD's now... for quality you cant beat Pink Floyd Pulse... has everything you want in a Pink Floyd concert, same applies to the Bands Last Waltz. DVD'S by the like of Roy Harper have a different value, they are also revealing insights into the man and his work.

One suspects that most live DVD's are basically untouched, although some merge sections from different concerts, when a piece was played better on a different night in the tour... can live with that

At the end of the day, among my favourite live albums and DVD's are the Bruce Springsteen ones, both audio and video discs include a selection of live recordings from concert stage, and tv studio over a decade, and include the obvious hits as well as some more obscure stuff. Not a concert, but a series of live versions of the songs – in some cases the studio versions are vastly superior, in others the live fel and performance adds to the song.