Top 5 Live Rock Albums

By Ned Hepburn on April 13th, 2009

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Ah, summer’s almost hear and so is the live music season. Live albums have been somewhat relegated to the back of the collective consciousness thanks to the advent of the mp3, where you don’t need to hear the whole set, instead just picking your favorite songs. However, when done right, the live album showcases an band in their best moments: live and on stage, playing to people that love them. This list represents our favorite live rock albums, and we hope you enjoy.

5. Johnny Cash “Live At Folsom Prison”

This is the go-to of live albums, and for good reasons. Not much hasn’t been written about this classic album, so I’ll spare you the boring details. It was recorded at a prison. Johnny Cash swears a lot. The prisoners love it. Yadda yadda yadda. What really makes this click is that there’s a tangible feeling in the air that Johnny knows what he’s getting at and you can hear him understand himself as the record progresses. Beforehand, the record companies were having a hard time marketing his image. After all, look at it from a white collar record executives level: with such a bevvy of squeaky clean country acts to choose from, how could you exactly market a burly baritone with a face only a mother could love? Here, Johnny understands that he was never really made for that kind of white-bread existence, and that his audience lies with the down-trodden. That, and it’s a pretty remarkable album.

4. Velvet Underground “Live At Max’s Kansas City”

Max’s Kansas City was located nowhere near Kansas… it was a restaurant / bar / venue in the 60’s in New York; a spot for all the art crowd to mingle. The album itself was recorded at the last night of a 9 week two-shows-a-night engagement, and the audibly tired band still manage to pull of a great set. It was recorded somewhat illegally directly onto a portable tape deck, and you can hear someone asking for “Pernod and drugs” a few different times. It really captures the moments, warts and all. Coincidentally, this live set also marks the last time Lou Reed played with the band, as less than a few weeks later he quit to go solo.

3. Jeff Buckley “Live At Sine-é”

Sine-é was a dinky little coffee shop in Manhattan’s East Village during the early to mid 1990’s. It held not much more than 60 people, and had a regular rotation of acoustic and singer songwriter acts come through. One of those acts was Jeff Buckley, son of 70’s psych-crooner Tim Buckley, a guy who’s voice literally could sound like a crooner one second and go to primal the next, all in the same song. At the point that this live album was recorded Jeff was relatively unknown, and the banter in between songs proves it, with a few false starts and fuck ups. But that’s what makes the album work: you can hear a pretty nervous young talented dude play some now Classic with a capital C songs like ‘Mojo Pin’ and ‘Hallelujah’ while people in the audience are non-chalantley stirring their coffee and shuffling about. Given his meteoric rise literally a year after this – and given Jeff’s tragic death not too much later, it’s a pretty phenomenal album to wrap your head around. Perhaps not for the Metallica fans out there, but one of my personal favorites.

2. Peter Frampton “Frampton Comes Alive”

Sure, it made every dude want to go out and get a voice-box. Sure, it’s “that” album that everyone at the time had. Sure, you’ve heard the songs hundreds of times before. But have you listened to the whole thing start to finish? It’s pretty intense. You can put it on in one room and instantly be transported back to the day it was recorded – sitting on the grass and smokin’ a doob with your coooool girlfriend, which is saying a lot for someone that wasn’t even fucking born until 1984. The way the album was recorded it really DOES sound like you were there. It’s a mystery. It’s a great summer album, best spent chilling out and pretending you’re the guy from High Fidelity sort of thing.

1. Cheap Trick “Live At The Budokan”

Cheap Trick are one of those bands who never seemed to get the attention they rightfully deserved. They recorded such power pop masterpieces as “Surrender” and “Dream Police” but never quite got to the same level as some of their late 70’s counterparts. Their music was literally five years ahead of their time, with their new wave sound they weren’t an easy fit in between punk and disco and 80’s pop. But it seems that everywhere else got them. This live album shows them in front of a Japanese audience that REALLY wants them, and perhaps understands how great of a band they really are. This is also the best recording of “I Want You To Want Me”, the bands signature song, best showcased here as a live cut. Cheap Trick are so under-rated its almost criminal. This is probably their finest moment captured in a 40 minute straight run through of their best songs. If you haven’t, check it out already. It’s not one to miss.

(Photo By: Marfis)