Acts that are much better live than on studio records

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i suppose a lot of metal bands are in that category.

also,Melvins (at least on the last 8 or so years i guess)

― Zeno, Wednesday, 9 May 2007 19:18 (eighteen years ago)

Dirtbombs

― Shakey Mo Collier, Wednesday, 9 May 2007 19:19 (eighteen years ago)

Circle

― Matt #2, Wednesday, 9 May 2007 19:34 (eighteen years ago)

Talking Heads

― Mr. Odd, Wednesday, 9 May 2007 19:35 (eighteen years ago)

Boredoms. Although I do like their records...

― Bill in Chicago, Wednesday, 9 May 2007 19:36 (eighteen years ago)

Much as I like Radiohead's albums, live they're just astonishing, and I find it very hard to put that into words I'd be satisfied with.

― Ned Raggett, Wednesday, 9 May 2007 19:37 (eighteen years ago)

boredoms:
i think quite the oposite..the present show with the drums is boring to death

― Zeno, Wednesday, 9 May 2007 19:38 (eighteen years ago)

Much as I like Radiohead's albums, live they're just astonishing, and I find it very hard to put that into words I'd be satisfied with.

it's funny, i almost have the opposite view. their live performances seem like they're trying just a little too hard to sound exactly like the record. sometimes it works (i.e., the arrangement ain't exactly that different, but the intensity of the performance is awesome -- "paranoid android," "national anthem" -- or the arrangement isn't like the record at all, and with hella intensity -- "everything in its right place," "idiotheque"), sometimes it doesn't (they're focusing too hard on sounding like the record, so they lose some of the intensity -- "subterranean homesick alien," "you and whose army"). but my biggest gripe is that it's standard performance fare: the spontanaety is intermittent, and rarely carries over from song to song. it's almost like they're distracted by whatever equipment changes they'll have to do for the next song.

― Lawrence the Looter, Wednesday, 9 May 2007 19:53 (eighteen years ago)

Polyphonic Spree

― henry s, Wednesday, 9 May 2007 19:57 (eighteen years ago)

Christ, nearly every band I've seen. This could explain why I was given the live music beat.

― I eat cannibals, Thursday, 10 May 2007 01:08 (eighteen years ago)

mogwai

― latebloomer, Thursday, 10 May 2007 01:13 (eighteen years ago)

King Crimson

― Sparkle Motion, Thursday, 10 May 2007 01:15 (eighteen years ago)

really crimson? they seem like such a record band. not very informed tho ::shrugs::

― Surmounter, Thursday, 10 May 2007 01:30 (eighteen years ago)

Dirty Three.

― Mister Craig, Thursday, 10 May 2007 01:55 (eighteen years ago)

really crimson? they seem like such a record band
Check the Great Deceiver box.

― Sparkle Motion, Thursday, 10 May 2007 02:03 (eighteen years ago)

http://www.ilxor.com/ILX/ThreadSelectedControllerServlet?action=showall&boardid=41&threadid=54514

― xhuxk, Thursday, 10 May 2007 02:05 (eighteen years ago)

Check the Great Deceiver box.

Right, stuff from 33 years and 3 versions of the band ago. I saw them on the Power to Believe tour and they really were kind of boring. Fripp has his ass clenched so tight with hatred of the touring grind and photography and incursions on his neverending moment of zen that he could shit diamonds, and it's not conducive to a scorching live show.

― Rock Hardy, Thursday, 10 May 2007 03:45 (eighteen years ago)

JAMES BROWN

― abanana, Thursday, 10 May 2007 04:22 (eighteen years ago)

Well, since I know no one else is going to say it so, Grateful Dead and Phish. Here, "better" is relative.

― jon /via/ chi 2.0, Thursday, 10 May 2007 04:28 (eighteen years ago)

The Ex.

― collardio gelatinous, Thursday, 10 May 2007 04:30 (eighteen years ago)

Dirtbombs

this is the truest assertion made on ILM today.

― fact checking cuz, Thursday, 10 May 2007 04:56 (eighteen years ago)

Right, stuff from 33 years and 3 versions of the band ago.
Well, that is the incarnation of Crim that lives in my mind the most, and for that the live stuff sounds way better to me than the records. Discipline (the song, which is perfect) and "Sleepless" notwithstanding, I prefer the Absent Lovers set to any of the 80s records.
For what it's worth I've seen them on the Thrak tour & thought they sounded pretty great--as good as the album at least, and again as one of the Projekts whenever that was--they meandered for an hour or so & fumbled through VROOM as an encore. I enjoyed it, but it was pretty much a wash, about the same as any of the recorded Projekt material.
The last thing I heard from them was Heavy Construcktion, which sounded much better than the contemporaneous studio album, which I hated.

― Sparkle Motion, Thursday, 10 May 2007 05:17 (eighteen years ago)

The Smiths.

Even stranger, the best live songs were only mid-table in the best-recordings rankings.

I partucularly liked 'What She Said' as a soaring explosion of muscular energy and the bit in the middle of 'BigMouth' sounding like... well nothing I could compare it to until I saw The Boredoms 20 years later.

― Sandy Blair, Thursday, 10 May 2007 05:53 (eighteen years ago)

les savy fav! i like their albums allright, but live they are in a whole other universe of badass. tim harrington molested me once. he has a lot of beard.

― Emily Bjurnhjam, Thursday, 10 May 2007 06:19 (eighteen years ago)

STEREOLAB

― Elvis Telecom, Thursday, 10 May 2007 06:35 (eighteen years ago)

Sons & Daughters

Manic Street Preachers. Their second album especially sounds woeful on record, but the songs were miles better live, shorn of the shit gloss. Especially Roses In The Hospital.

― Mister Craig, Thursday, 10 May 2007 06:50 (eighteen years ago)

[i]boredoms:
i think quite the oposite..the present show with the drums is boring to death[/o]

Really? I thought it would bore me to death before I went but I loved every minute of it.

― MacDara, Thursday, 10 May 2007 08:18 (eighteen years ago)

Ah, bloody BBcode tags!

― MacDara, Thursday, 10 May 2007 08:19 (eighteen years ago)

belle and sebastian. especially early on. they'd play great new stuff that'd only come out years later. bit stop and starty at times with the instrument changes etc but still.

> Ah, bloody BBcode tags!

no, that was you!

― koogs, Thursday, 10 May 2007 09:47 (eighteen years ago)

Bearing in mind the word "much":

Amy Winehouse, Get Cape Wear Cape Fly, Rodrigo Y Gabriela, The Feeling, Pink, The Automatic, The Long Blondes, Secret Machines, Sons & Daughters.

― mike t-diva, Thursday, 10 May 2007 09:56 (eighteen years ago)

LCD SOUNDSYSTEM OWN THIS THREAD

― lex pretend, Thursday, 10 May 2007 10:01 (eighteen years ago)

Sloan, oh god, Sloan. They are good on studio records, but live they are a revelation.

― Masonic Boom, Thursday, 10 May 2007 10:12 (eighteen years ago)

Architecture in Helsinki. Annoying on record, wonderful live.

― braveclub, Thursday, 10 May 2007 10:13 (eighteen years ago)

radiohead is one of the greatest studio bands in history. i've seen them live twice and they're great, but simply not as good as when i'm in sonic bliss listening to their better records.

i'll go with sigur ros

― Charlie Howard, Thursday, 10 May 2007 17:53 (eighteen years ago)

and as an afterthought, yes i agree with manic street preachers. live they are anthemic and almost inspirational. on record, they are underpowered and buried under a cluttered mix

― Charlie Howard, Thursday, 10 May 2007 17:55 (eighteen years ago)

Richard Thompson. Good records, albeit a little dull sometimes. But live, holy mackerel...

― kornrulez6969, Thursday, 10 May 2007 17:58 (eighteen years ago)

Explosions in the Sky.
Secret Chiefs 3.
Masada.

― novaheat, Thursday, 10 May 2007 18:01 (eighteen years ago)

Good responses so far re: R. Thompson, Sloan and the Mogwai/EITS/Boris-type bands. I'd also suggest just about any decent New Orleans band, especially the Neville Brothers. They, The Iguanas, groups like that need about two hours to get spooled up and then, watch out.

― ellaguru, Thursday, 10 May 2007 18:11 (eighteen years ago)

Less Than Jake

― C. Grisso/McCain, Thursday, 10 May 2007 18:36 (eighteen years ago)

Dirty Projectors: I saw them at the Silent Barn in Brooklyn, and despite not being able to see anything and being packed in a thick room-size cloud of Parliament smoke and people, every song was amazing and memorable in that Capt. Beefheart kind of way. My girlfriend picked up The Getty Address a week later and it seriously blows; sub-Xiu Xiu plinky plonk aluminum can Ikue Mori faux deconstructed polyrhythm with Dead Science so-barely-there-it's-not vox. To its credit, the album's about Don Henley; the songs performed live dealt with less tricky subject matter.

― earth mystery, Thursday, 10 May 2007 18:43 (eighteen years ago)

As outstanding as all his records are, Alejandro Escovedo is just tremendous live. Every time. With any kind of lineup. His stage mix is also always exemplary.

― ellaguru, Thursday, 10 May 2007 18:47 (eighteen years ago)

The only one I can imagine is Elvis Costello.

My favourite genres usually benefit from a glossy, perfect and highly detailed production, so it is rarely that I will be able to see anything as better live than in the studio. Plus the first version of a composision is by definition always the definitive.

― Geir Hongro, Thursday, 10 May 2007 18:53 (eighteen years ago)

Richard Thompson. Good records, albeit a little dull sometimes. But live, holy mackerel...

Seconded. I've never seen him in concert, but the solo from "Can't Win" on Watching the Dark is so gigantic and extemporaneously inventive. I can remember exactly where I was the first time I heard it, because I had absolutely no idea what I was getting into. I spent the last 3 minutes of the song blocking traffic in the middle of the sidewalk, dumbfounded with my mouth wide open.

Gushing a little? Yeah. But his studio stuff is so restrained that the change-over was shocking.

― kingkongvsgodzilla, Thursday, 10 May 2007 19:03 (eighteen years ago)

I'll also mention Nomeansno.

― kingkongvsgodzilla, Thursday, 10 May 2007 19:04 (eighteen years ago)

kingkong: There's a track-by-track live version of Mock Tudor by RT called Semi-Detached Mock Tudor, I think, and as incredible as the solo on the studio version of "Had On Me" is the live version is, like, the end of guitar solos. A must-hear if you like the way he plays.

― ellaguru, Thursday, 10 May 2007 19:14 (eighteen years ago)

Langhorne Slim
White Hills (although they are dazzling on record, they're mindblowing live)

― Andi Mags, Thursday, 10 May 2007 19:52 (eighteen years ago)

Thompson thirded. I don't even buy his studio records, but I'd drop just about everything to go see him live.

― Rock Hardy, Thursday, 10 May 2007 20:05 (eighteen years ago)

I saw Richard Thompson on a double bill with Wilco around 2000 and he positively blew them off the stage, it wasn't even close.

He's also equally great just solo acoustic. I can't think of anybody I'd rather see with just an acoutic guitar for 2 hours, including Dylan, Neil Young or Springsteen. He's also incredibly funny, which adds a lot.

― kornrulez6969, Thursday, 10 May 2007 20:39 (eighteen years ago)

I was going to mention NoMeansNo.

Also, Battles - saw them in NYC about a month ago, and it really brought the new album into focus. So much energy, so tight with the loopers and the multi-instrumentalism, and having the drummer out in front with his cymbal up high is awesome.

― raven, Friday, 11 May 2007 03:11 (eighteen years ago)

Architecture in Helsinki seconded, and Secret Machines also

― Morley Timmons, Friday, 11 May 2007 08:04 (eighteen years ago)

four years pass...

How about Ween?

I don't much like the 30 or 40-minute versions of songs like "Poop Ship Destroyer" but they've always been incredible live to the point where I much prefer something like Live at Stubb's to any of their studio releases.

― frogbs, Thursday, 25 August 2011 19:42 (fourteen years ago)

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