If I were to compile a top 100 list, I’d imagine that at
least 20 % of the total would constitute live albums. I’ve already played during the year some of
the certain inclusions such as The Celibate Rifles Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, AC/DC’s
If You Want Blood You Got It, It’s Alive by The Ramones, Live! by Bob Marley
and the Wailers, Keith Jarrett’s Koln Concert, Rock Of Ages by The Band, Little
Feat’s Waiting For Columbus, S + M by Metallica, Spiritualized’ s Royal Albert
Hall October 10 1977, the Frank Zappa
and Ensemble Modern collaboration The Yellow Shark and The Grateful Dead’s epic
Live/Dead.
To that esteemed list I would add the following four albums
that constitute today’s playlist. They
would, in all probability, be the four highest ranked live albums on my list:
(# 617) The Who –
Live At Leeds (1970)
Although I’m a massive fan of The Who, this is just about
the only one of their albums that I would contemplate adding to a top 100
although Who’s Next would go close. This
live album, more or less, summarised their career prior to the recording of
that studio landmark. It is a warts and
all recording of the band firing on all four cylinders, seemingly unhindered by
drugs, alcohol or taped introductions a la Baba O’Riley or Won’t Get Fooled
Again. The original rendition of this
album consisted of just 6 tracks, all of which are brilliant. Side one brought together a tough sounding
cover of Young Man Blues, a raging Substitute, an over the top cover of
Summertime Blues and a strong Shakin’ All Over.
Side two, incredibly upped the ante with a 14 minute version of My
Generation that also incorporated elements of Tommy and other tracks only for
that to be bettered by an 8 minute version of Magic Bus that veers into the
realms of heavy metal. (A 25th
anniversary edition extended the album to CD length and a collector’s edition 5
years later provided the entire show although not in the order the tracks were
played. The former is probably the version to get.) Beautifully recorded, it exposes all of this
bands strengths including Roger Daltrey’s massive vocals and Keith Moon’s
impossibly manic drums. And, in case you
haven’t heard it, the Live At Hull album recorded on the next stop of the same
tour isn’t as good. Nor would one expect
it to be. Live At Leeds is one of those
very rare live albums that captured a live act almost without peer on a great
night out.
(# 618) The Aints –
S.L.S.Q Very Live! (1991)
In 1991, lead vocalist Chris Bailey was touring Australia
with a version of a band he called The Saints.
This didn’t appear to please that band’s original guitarist Ed Kuepper
who put together his own band which he
called The Aints and then toured playing tracks drawn exclusively from The
Saints first two studio albums. One
result of that tour was this scorching live album in which Kuepper’s patented
buzz saw guitar attacked the tunes with an intensity that was simply jaw
dropping. The album kicks off with an
introduction of feedback and other howling guitar noise that yields to a
blistering version of This Perfect Say.
With scarcely a pause the band goes on to attack Erotic Neurotic
(basically I Want To Be Your Man) Runaway and Know Your Product with ever
increasing levels of intensity. This is
maintained to the end of the album via patented Saints demolition set pieces
River Deep Mountain High, Messin’ With The Kid and Nights In Venice. Even the audience adopts the same messianic
zeal as evidenced by the punter screaming for the band to play during the
ironically titled Audience Rain Chant.
(# 619) Jerry Lee
Lewis – Live At The Star-Club Hamburg (1964)
Live albums give some of the pioneer acts who might not have
recorded great individual studio albums a chance of getting a spot in my top
100. And no one is more deserving of
this than The Killer. In front of a
rabid audience at the very venue The Beatles underwent their musical maturation,
Jerry Lee and the Nashville Teens tore into a set of rock n roll classics like
a bunch of slobbering Reganites and Thatcherites in front of an open bank vault
full of money intended for social justice causes guarded by poor people. Mean Woman Blues, High
School Confidential and, especially, a raging Money (That’s What I Want) gets
things off to a blistering start. Covers
of Carl Perkins’ Matchbox and both parts of Ray Charles What’d I Say are then
despatched before Jerry turns his attack onto his own Great Balls Of Fire and Good
Golly Miss Molly. A diversion into
country for Lewis’ Boogie and Hank Williams’ Your Cheatin’ Heart provide a
chance for respite pending the full on assault upon Hound Dog, Long Tall Sally
and, inevitably, Whole Lotta Shakin’ Going On.
Really there is just nothing more exciting in all of rock music than
this. Oh yes, and the Jerry! Jerry!
chant popularised on the Jerry Springer Show began live here.
(# 620) James Brown –
Love Power Peace. Live At The Olympia Paris, 8 March 1971 (1992)
How this album could lie unreleased for 20 years is not just
a mystery but a travesty. This album is
an aural history book marking the actual connection point between the soul of
James Brown and the hard funk of Parliament/Funkadelic. It is the only live
recording to surface that documents Brown’s Band with Bootsy Collins, Catfish
Collins and Fred Welsey, all of whom were to subsequently join the latter. It is a faultless recording of a faultless
show with tracks so well honed by the band that they all flow seamlessly
together like that greatest DJ mix you’ve ever heard. The opening of Brother Rapp and Ain’t It
Funky Now is hair raising stuff and sets the bar for the evening. Sex Machine, a medley of Papa’s Got A Brand
New Bag/I Got You (I Feel Good) I Got The Feeling and Give It Up Or Turnit A
Loose keeps the excitement level high interspersed by great balladry in Georgia On My Mind and
It’s A Man’s Man’s World. The ending of
the show/album is earth shattering; traditional closer Please Please Please gives
way to a Sex Machine reprise before everyone goes for the kill with an encore
of Super Band, Get Up Get Into It Get Involved and Soul Power. As fine as the first three Live At The Apollo
albums are, this singe disc album leaves them all in the dust.
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