Essential Live Albums

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Midnight Oil - Armistice Day: Live at the Domain, Sydney

Latter career gem from these guys, who are always a pleasure to revisit. Here, they power through a good number of hits for them (I can’t say I knew these songs as hits maybe more than staples) and newer songs with the Oils level of precision. Pushing a bit more than normal is where some of the best songs go here, like Power and the Passion, US Forces, Stand In Line, Forgotten Years, the acoustic Kosciuszko, Only the Strong, No Time For Games, Short Memory, Sometimes, and King of the Mountain. I can pick quite a few favorites from this list - definitely a great band I am happy I got to before the called it quits getting to their final NYC show.

The Essential Performances: The Power and the Passion, Forgotten Years, No Time For Games, Short Memory

Up Next: Neil Young - Sugar Mountain: Canterbury Hall 1968

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Neil Young - Sugar Mountain: Live at Canterbury Hall 1968

A charming early solo career set where Neil spends as much time chatting with the audience as he does playing, even going so far to note that none of the set had been planned in advance. That said, Neil has a lot of really good stuff in here playing by himself - my favorites being Mr. Soul, Expecting to Fly, The Old Laughing Lady, and Broken Arrow, but you can’t really go wrong with what’s played, including the title track here.

The Essential Performances: Mr. Soul, Expecting to Fly, The Old Laughing Lady, Broken Arrow

Up Next: Springsteen on Broadway

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Who - Live at Leeds
Humble Pie - Performance at the Filmore
Neil - Massey Hall

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Who - Live at Leeds
Humble Pie - Performance at the Filmore
Neil - Massey Hall

All have been covered here. Mostly positive thoughts of course.

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Bruce Springsteen - Springsteen on Broadway

400 plus live albums in, and it’s here maybe for the first time that anyone worked to answer the existential question: why? Why do we care about these musical passages - what does it do for us that we invest so heavily? Through 2.5 hours of autobiographical narrative and song that’s reflective, humorous, and heartbreaking, Springsteen gets there. His story passionately told from his moment of discovery, and how his relationships contextualize the songs he plays is masterful storytelling, a series of hits and deep cuts that indeed cut deep, as he gets to the essence of how we experience lives and what this music brings each of us in that story that makes up our lives in aggregate. Not something you can reach for regularly, but essential indeed.

The Essential Performance: really all of it

Up Next: Bruce Springsteen - The Live Series: Songs of the Road

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Bruce Springsteen - The Live Series: Songs of the Road

While Springsteen has been releasing archive shows on nugs.net for the last 7 or 8 years, he has also been releasing live compilations, thematically driven, in the same timeframe. This one, which may have been first, focuses on his penchant for songs calling out to get in the car and hit the road. By and large, everything here is good, though maybe not as transcendent as his performances can get. The E Street Shuffle, Incident on 57th Street, Open All Night, Action in the Streets, Working On the Highway, and Out in the Streets are certainly all highlight worthy, though the one performance that stuck out to me as particularly fabulous was Drive All Night, particularly Clarence Clemons contribution here which really makes the song soar.

The Essential Performance: Drive All Night

Up Next: R.E.M. - Live at the Olympia

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R.E.M. - Live at the Olympia

39 songs and not a hit in sight. Focusing this compilation from warm up shows in advance of the Accelerate tour, we find R.E.M. playing deeper cuts and nearly all of Accelerate on this one. For the most part, the Accelerate songs sound great and the big blast of Living Well Is the Best Revenge to start this off is quite good. Driver 8, Second Guessing, Feeling Gravity’s Pull, Harborcoat, Carnival of Sorts, West of the Fields, Pretty Persuasion, and the always enjoyable Gardening At Night were my favorites here, but it’s so consistently solid that you can’t go wrong anywhere on this.

The Essential Performances: Harborcoat, Gardening At Night

Up Next: Midnight North - Selections From the Great American Music Hall

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Midnight North - Selections From the Great American Music Hall

Surrounded by guests, from Twiddle’s Mihali, Bob Weir and Phil Lesh, and more, Midnight North have a moment of redemption for me, wherein the last one was alright, this one is fantastic. Everyday, Lost in the Cold, The Music Never Stopped (probably the best Donna impression I can remember), Miss M, and Angel From Montgomery seem like essential listening. Apparently the more the merrier.

The Essential Performance: Lost in the Cold, Miss M

Up Next: Joe Russo’s Almost Dead - 2018-03-16: Albany, NY

[VinylGuy]

R.E.M. - Live at the Olympia

39 songs and not a hit in sight. Focusing this compilation from warm up shows in advance of the Accelerate tour, we find R.E.M. playing deeper cuts and nearly all of Accelerate on this one. For the most part, the Accelerate songs sound great and the big blast of Living Well Is the Best Revenge to start this off is quite good. Driver 8, Second Guessing, Feeling Gravity’s Pull, Harborcoat, Carnival of Sorts, West of the Fields, Pretty Persuasion, and the always enjoyable Gardening At Night were my favorites here, but it’s so consistently solid that you can’t go wrong anywhere on this.

The Essential Performances: Harborcoat, Gardening At Night

Up Next: Midnight North - Selections From the Great American Music Hall

one of my favs releases from them back in the day

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Joe Russo’s Almost Dead - Albany, NY :: 2018-03-16

What’s another JRAD show without wildly crazy great versions of songs that actually rival the Grateful Dead!? I kept thinking throughout this: “oh this must be the top performance” until the next song comes powering in. As is often the case, the songs stream in seamlessly with possibly no breaks in each of the sets. The Wheel was pretty amazing here only to soon be topped by first set closing Truckin’ > Music Never Stopped Reprise > Born Cross-Eyed Jam. The second set starts with a long jam into Ruben & Cherise, but then breaks into an amazing Viola Lee Blues and then into another stellar Jack Straw. That segues into So Many Roads which is stunning and then into Going Down the Road Feeling Bad. This is like visiting a Dead candy store with no clue what to walk out with. Great show.

The Essential Performance: Truckin’ > The Music Never Stopped Reprise > Born Cross-Eyed Jam

Up Next: Neil Young - Dreamin’ Man 1992

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Neil Young - Dreamin’ Man Live ‘92

When it comes to solo acoustic Neil Yoing, it’s gonna be tough to top Massey Hall on official recordings, but this one seems to come moderately close, with a focus on Harvest Moon - perhaps in that way that Neil’s 90s output is the spot where he came closest to his 70s output. Highlights, especially in the second half, are abound - a beautiful Harvest Moon, Unknown Legend, Hank to Hendrix, a really fun Old King, Natural Beauty was fantastic as was closing War of Man. This one is pretty spotless, incredible the way he can carry the show without a sense of gimmick. Just Neil on stage playing songs.

The Essential Performance: Unknown Legend, Old King

Up Next: Gov’t Mule - Bring on the Music: Live at the Capitol Theatre

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Gov’t Mule - Bring On the Music: Live at the Capitol Theatre

Focusing here just on the standard edition, which is 2.5 hours long (the deluxe adds another 2.5 hours). In all openness, I attended one of these shows at the Capitol Theatre in 2018 - the one where they covered Come Back (the first and only time I have heard another band cover PRAMG era Pearl Jam). That aside, this one has the feel of a southern rock Led Zeppelin on steroids the riffs are so huge. Mule is great as always, Funny Little Tragedy > Message in a Bottle > Funny Little Tragedy is really good here, Dar Away was epic, but the must heard on this one is a phenomenal version of Dark Was the Night Cold Was the Ground, and Bring On the Music. Really great compilation here.

The Essential Performances: Dark Was the Night Cold Was the Ground, Bring On the Music

Up Next: Phish - Kasvot Vaxt: i rokk

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Phish - Kasvot Vaxt: i rokk

As part of their tradition on Halloween, Phish dressed up once again as another band, though this one turned out to be more trick than treat. Instead of covering a classic album, Phish played a prank on their fans by inventing a fictional Scandinavian prog rock band, creating an online presence extolling the legend of their one album, then playing that one fictional album on Halloween. Shockingly, the results are pretty fabulous - a fun exercise where synthesizers and deliberately ridiculous tag lines (“face plant into rock!”) mix in with some guitar jams. Stray Dog, Everything Is Hollow, Say It To Me SANTOS, The Final Hurrah, Cool Amber and Mercury, and Passing Through are all enticing songs, and it’s a fun party all around.

The Essential Performance: Say It To Me SANTOS

Up Next: Ghosts of the Forest - Under a Sea of Stars

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Ghosts of the Forest - Under a Sea of Stars

Inspired by the death of a friend, Trey Anastasio put this band together, recorded a more serious in tone and more guitar driven album, and engaged in a short tour where the sets were not deviated at least in the songs they played. This is the last show of that short tour. The band is mostly pretty focused and feels less improvised, though there’s plenty of that. The songs are really quite good for the most part, and still have Trey DNA to them even if change in tone some (latter Phish I think has a more serious and introspective writing post hiatus I think than before, but that’s for another day). Drift While You’re Sleeping, Halfway Home, In Long Lines, There’s a Path Above, About to Run, The Green Truth, and Stumble Into Flight are all clear highlights, though the way Ruby Waves ascends into the ether takes the cake for me in this one.

The Essential Performance: Ruby Waves

Up Next: Goose - 2019-11-16 Buffalo, NY

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Goose - 2019-11-16 Buffalo, NY

This is the first entry (of quite a few to come) for this band. With the jam chops of Phish and songwriting that is influenced by Dave Matthews among many others, these guys have both that potent combination with an ability to lock into a groove and explore it in ways few others can’t. Despite the fact that they’ve shared the stage with Trey Anastasio (we’ll get there), Bob Weir, Phil Lesh, and a host of others, Phish fans revel in giving this band flack, in part perhaps because their songs are so accessible, and perhaps in part because they pose the first real threat to the decades long monopoly Phish has attained in jam band attention and focus.

That notwithstanding, at this point, only a mere 5 years ago, Goose was a band no one ever heard of from Norwalk, CT playing a small club in Buffalo - a live album where you can hear nearly conversations of individual attendees. The band’s charm is evident throughout and especially in a raucous second set that bounces from vocal distortions into surprise covers (A-Ha and Randy Newman feature prominently next to Shamma-Lamma Ding-Dong). For the set winner, hard choice between Creatures > Shama Lama Ding Dong and the extended Hot Tea > Take On Me > Hot Tea jam, so I just take em both.

The Essential Performances: Creatures > Shama Lama Ding Dong, Hot Tea > Take On Me > Hot Tea jam

Up Next: Dopapod - Live at the Capitol Theatre

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Dopapod - Live at the Capitol Theatre

This is the third live album I have covered here from Dopapod, and the general idea sticks: jam band with some electronic elements. Given that much of the jammier sections of these bands play into a hypnotic sense of playing off repeated rhythms, it’s not all that far from electronic sounds. It works well here though it does seem to go on for a long time. The highlights in particular here are Trapper Keeper (they admit as much in closing the first set), and a cover of Bullet With Butterfly Wings in honor of their lighting guy that was also hired to do lighting for the Smashing Pumpkins. Fun times.

The Essential Performance: Trapper Keeper, Bullet With Butterfly Wings

Up Next: Pigeons Playing Ping Pong - Stop Making Cake: Halloween 2019

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Pigeons Playing Ping Pong - Stop Making Cake: Halloween 2019

Conceptually having a funk jam band melding their catalogue with Cake and Talking Heads covers sounds like lunacy. It works quite well though, with the momentum from their songs informing their covers throughout, and it seems the band is really having a lot of fun and not taking this concept too seriously. Poseidon > And She Was > Poseidon, White Night > Making Flippy Floppy > White Night, Avalanche > Hem in Your Garment > Avalanche, I Will Survive, Time to Ride, Zydeco > Once in a Lifetime > Zydeco all highlight, though the winner here is F.U. > Moon Rocks > F.U.

The Essential Performance: F.U. > Moon Rocks > F.U.

Up Next: Dead & Co. - New York, NY 10/31/19

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Dead & Co. - Madison Square Garden, New York, NY 10/31/19

This begins a short yet a little of an alternate take on the Dead songbook. Part 1 of that is Dead & Co., a band offshoot with most of the band, excluding Phil Lesh, and adding Oteil Burbidge and John Mayer. Much of this can be challenging, in part because Mayer has great energy but his voice still seems out of place, but mostly because the band seems to play at a half pace that suggests some level of fragility, like a stiff wind could knock the music over. That said, Mayer’s guitar work here is top notch, and carries the band through the show. The best of this is Playing in the Band, which is the one moment that truly feels like a band stretching out and exploring.

The Essential Performance: Playing in the Band

Up Next: Joe Russo’s Almost Dead - Brooklyn, NY:: 2019-11-25

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Joe Russo’s Almost Dead - Brooklyn, NY :: 2019-11-25

The songbook celebration of the Dead continues with this 4 hour long show that benefited Headcount. The band tore through not just their versions of the Grateful Dead catalogue, but sprinkled in a few more to really elevate this show. A 35 minute Terrapin Station Suite is certainly a highlight, as is a killer Shakedown Street, and the run from Althea > The Eleven > Viola Lee Blues > Franklin’s Tower speaks for itself. But adding covers of Springsteen’s Atlantic City, a mind blowing In Memory of Elizabeth Reed, and an Another Brick in the Wall jam attached to Throwing Stones were all signature moments here. Yet another phenomenal performance from this band.

The Essential Performances: In Memory of Elizabeth Reed, Shakedown Street

Up Next: Grateful Dead - Ready or Not

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Grateful Dead - Ready or Not

As a sort of what would have been, Phil Lesh curated and released a compilation of live performances from songs that could have been the next Grateful Dead album. Much like the second half of their career, this is some great, some decent, some meh. The greats are Days Between, So Many Roads, and Lazy River Road, all pulling from the biggest strengths of the band’s songbook, while Corrina is a solid noodler of a tune, and the rest the sort of chance taking that kind of works and kind of doesn’t. A band that was always interesting stays so even nearly 15 years removed from their final performance.

The Essential Performance: So Many Roads, Days Between

Up Next: Neil Young - Live at the Cellar Door