Past Lives

[Ramona_A_Stone]

Generally I'm not a fan of live music--by that I mean recordings of live music. My feeling is if, for instance, being a Peter Murphy fan, I want to hear Indigo Eyes, I'd prefer to hear the perfected studio recording (or in this particular case, the more recent studio remix) than to hear it sung in a strange meter with odd instrumentation, as it is on Murphy's new live album. Don't get me wrong, if I was at the show, I'd be swooning and squealing (like all the fans do on the recording) but if I really want to hear that song I'll refer to Love Hysteria.

Live recordings sometimes seem to be less about the music than they are about documentary, vicariously experienced spectacle and oblique voyeurism. Some, in fact, obviously seem to be popular because of the desire in us all to be rock and roll stars, and have very little to do with musical excellence. This seems particularly true of those strange people out there, for instance, with every entire live show of Tori Amos ever pirated on anything from high quality DAT to miniature cassette decks in someone's pocket where you can hear the guy that recorded it and his five friends talking about the joint they're smoking about 50% louder than the show. (I in fact was recently given about 8 gig of this by a good friend, even though I really didn't want most of it: Tori Live 10/03/2001 Ryman Auditorium Nashville ...ad infinitum. One show is even labeled: 'Bad Night'... lol. Delete delete delete.)

Of course this isn't a unilateral assertion. A lot of live recordings have turned out to be priceless classics. I have some clear favorites.

My top live albums of all time, then, not particularly in any order:


.STARLESS AND BIBLE BLACK - KING CRIMSON
(1974)

Some people are quite shocked to realize this is in fact a live album, beginning to end. (I was) It came out of the soundboard and there's no trace of audience until the very end. (and it's omitted altogether from the remastered CD) Hands down, the best live band of all time at (one of) their peak(s). Great Deceiver, Lament, The Nightwatch, entirely unbelievable.



.DAVID LIVE - DAVID BOWIE LIVE AT THE TOWER PHILADELPHIA
(1974, two discs)

As above, not only one of my favorite live albums, but one of my favorite albums of all time. Every nuance is so burned into my memory I can even 'sing along' with the outbursts from the audience. Bowie is hoarse, sweaty, sounds completely exhausted, and gives the performance of his life. All the musicians (including Earl Slick, David Sanborn and Mike Garson) have clearly sold their immortal souls to various Aztec Demons for a night of preternatural prowess. The versions of Sweet Thing, Aladdin Sane, All the Young Dudes, and Cracked Actor make me squeal and hold my face just like one of the teenage girls in the front row at the Beatles first American show. (tee hee, well, almost)



.DEAD CAN DANCE - TOWARD THE WITHIN
(1994)

I still have to turn out all the lights, get naked and play this album everytime there's a thunderstorm at night (really pisses me off when the power goes out during it) and I always have to play Rakim eight times in a row. This album is proof that Lisa Gerrard is a non human reanimated zombie metaphysically controlled by an host of discarnate beings from afar. Brendan is pretty spooky too. Unparalleled versions of I Can See Now, American Dreaming, and Don't Fade Away.



.PORTISHEAD - ROSELAND NYC LIVE
(1998)

Crazy mix of ambient, technotronic hip hop, jazz and full-on organic James Bondian orchestrations. Amazingly, here is a live album that actually turned me on to the band in question. This album reinvents the term "big band" (I'm convinced time machines were involved) and sounds like cocaine feels... actually much better, because I never realize that my life is a shambles or contemplate suicide while listening to it.



.DAVID SYLVIAN AND ROBERT FRIPP - DAMAGE
(1994)

An exercise in the contrast of restraint and indulgence. This album is necessary for the opening and closing tracks alone, which don't exist in any other form, the almost surreally pastoral Damage and The First Day. The album then explodes with the dream rock and roll line-up of all time: Fripp on guitar and Frippertronics, Trey Gunn on the Chapman stick and Pat Mastelotto on drums, creating a strobing apocalyptic thunderworld through which Sylvian on keyboards and Michael Brook on 'infinite guitar,' sustain, buzz and float, unfluttered.

A couple more honorable mentions: (because I'm currently out of time)

JAPAN - OIL ON CANVAS
(1983)

TODD RUNDGREN'S UTOPIA - ANOTHER LIVE
(1975)


...So what are yours?