Best 1970s Live Album

Easy vote for take no prisoners. Most of these are pretty boring.

I think you're dead wrong on both counts, obviously. I like Rock 'n' Roll Animal, but I think Lou Reed sucks about 90 percent of the time, and if you find the Fania All-Stars boring, well, I just don't know what to say about that.

Tough, tough choice between Allmans, Crimson and the Who. Zappa's Roxy album has shit-hot playing, but some of the material is a little too padded-out with comedy bits.

Nugent for the between song banter.

wut? where's the neil young?!
i guess i'll vote for fania all stars in the absence of ny/ch/rust.

Dont get me wrong some of these are great - cheap trick, curtis, p-funk, the who, the nuge, thin lizzy - but the majority range from mediocre to awful

Great thread cause live albums were such a 70s thing. A lot of these are sentimental favorites but in purely musical term I would probably vote Curtis Mayfield at this point in time

Wishbone Ash Live Dates is one notable omission

Yeah, Live Rust got in just under the wire--Nov. '79. (Time Fades Away's live too. And Dylan & the Band's Before the Flood is pretty famous.) My vote is determined solely by the best stage patter: Alive!

I to take Curtis over the Fania All-Stars. Especially since it isn't really a live show. The Yankee Stadium date ended early after fans rushed the field and security freaked out.

Two more omissions: Wattstax and Donny Hathaway Live.

I knew I was gonna miss some big ones, and now that people are mentioning some of 'em (Live Rust, Before the Flood...though I've never heard that one, so I plead pure ignorance. And didn't the Band put out their own live album that's getting reissued soon?). I wish I'd remembered to include Europe '72, too, and Isaac Hayes' Live at the Sahara Tahoe, and the Mahavishnu Orchestra's Between Nothingness and Eternity... Oh, well.

Roxy & Elsewhere for me. Golden era for live albums.

(xpost) Yes--the Band's Rock of Ages was pretty big too. There were so many live albums through the '70s.

http://www.progarchives.com/progressive_rock_discography_covers/732/cover_1255111722009.jpg

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/6/65/Stupidity_%28Dr_Feelgood_Album%29.jpg

I didn't realize that Space Ritual wasn't on the list! It would have got my vote ahead of Roxy.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/c/c5/Deep_Purple_Made_in_Japan.jpg

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Nighthawks_At_The_Diner.jpg

http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_ls2wq5rHSN1qib2bbo1_500.jpg

http://www.801live.com/images/801livecover.png

True '70s live albums had to be a double, with a booklet.

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-4jHeOmyD4N8/TqV_PwVqRqI/AAAAAAAAAgw/ObNexH0N1t0/s400/front.jpg

Live-Evil? Agharta/Pangaea?

Nighthawks isn't live.

http://www.jazzmusicarchives.com/images/covers/eddie-palmieri-at-the-university-of-puerto-rico%28live%29-20120304163055.jpg

(oops... technically wrong cover on that 801 Live album, it's the reissue cover)

xxp: Nighthawks was recorded live in front of a small audience. It's a technicality vote.

Or, regarding Nighthawks, I should say fake-ish live.

xpost

i wonder how many of these albums were viciously overdubbed after the fact

(only posting image, not an endorsement)

http://www.kleberboelter.com/ojardimdodiabo/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/Rick-Wakeman-Journey-To-The-Centre-Of-The-Earth-Front.jpg

Too bad "Band of Gypsys" isn't here, but I guess only half of it was recorded in the '70s (1-1-1970, with the other half recorded the previous night) so it was disqualified, right? No excuse for exclusion otherwise imo.

I've owned all but a few of these at various times. Many disappointments, a few revelations, the rest just OK. Lotus is the only one that's also a career-best album, so I'll go with that one on that count. I was mildly tripping when I first heard it and relish the vision of Carlos Santana as some kinda techno-priest ritualistically ripping the wires out of an old TV test-tube tester to the beat of African drums.

Viciously overdubbed after the fact, and missing from the lineup:

http://www.metal-metropolis.com/Judas_Priest/judas_priest_unleashed.jpg

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51YreAbH0hL._SY300_.jpg

Pretty big:

http://pixhost.me/avaxhome/b6/c4/0018c4b6_medium.jpeg

Not trying to undermine the list. Again, you'd need a list of 50-100 to catch everything of note.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/c/c6/June1-1974.jpg

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-dtCbkHvNMvk/TrJ41HnzQjI/AAAAAAAAFcs/fJkVG0d-QC0/s320/scorpions-tokyo-tapes-1978.jpg

You could even argue that the Velvets' '69 Live is a '70s album, not having been released until '74.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/f/fa/Keith_Jarrett_Koln_Concert_Cover.jpg

http://www.recordsale.de/cdpix/n/neil_diamond-hot_august_night(8).jpg

Man! Now I feel like I should have done a nominations thread rather than just go from my own (apparently massively flawed) memory.

BTW, I limited this to rock & soul/R&B on purpose - no jazz of any kind. (Which would kindasorta let Mahavishnu out, except I think of them as instrumental prog rather than jazz.)

The Last Waltz!

I wonder if an admin could add all the albums cited above to the poll...?

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/0/0a/Album-aretha-live-at-fillmore-west.jpg

o man ezsnappin for the win

Ah, the gatefold.

http://tralfaz-archives.com/coverart/S/slade_alivef.jpg

http://eurweb.zippykid.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/Donna-Summer-Live-And-More-190234.jpg

I think the list is actually well optimized for what we think of when we think "the 1970s live album." I'd argue for Deep Purple's Made In Japan being the one big omission. It a) charted decently, b) works well as a 'greatest hits' collection, and c) rocks massively. Would stand admirably in a fight with Live At Leeds.

Voted Live At Leeds. I vote apocalypse every time - and that's not even the best Who show!

the nugent's a nice mix of what i love about live at leeds and what i love about kiss alive so i voted that

So many others: J. Geils Band - "Live" Full House and Blow Your Face Out, Blue Oyster Cult's Some Enchanted Evening, Little Feat's Waiting For Columbus, Rainbow On Stage.

Truly, the golden age of live records.

http://eil.com/images/main/Magma+-+Live+-+DOUBLE+LP-564245.jpg

huge omission imo

http://www.backtoblackvinyl.com/images/album-artwork/big/van-morrison-its-too-late-to-stop-now-front.jpg

this should at least be considered

http://cps-static.rovicorp.com/3/JPG_400/MI0001/873/MI0001873072.jpg

Which of the poll selections are decidedly "fake" live records? Live and Dangerous for sure... What else?

I voted Strangers in the Night above, 'cause "Lights Out CHICAGO!" Baby....

Voted ELP cuz fuuuuuck it

"Unleashed in the East" was, as noted, "heavily doctored".

Re-recording musical performances in the studio is understandable. But I never understood the phenomenonon of doing fake crowd noises, like on Sex Machine.

ALSO YOU MISSED VITAL BY VAN DER GRAAF!!

Also missing

Bill Withers - Live at Carnegie Hall

http://www.amiright.com/album-covers/images/album-John-Martyn-Live-at-Leeds.jpg

write in vote for grateful dead europe 72

http://cps-static.rovicorp.com/3/JPG_500/MI0001/984/MI0001984242.jpg

voted Ramones It's Alive - but good call on Bill Withers at Carnegie, that's a monster

but does anyone know if it's true that It's Alive was a fake live album? I've heard that rumour for years.

but does anyone know if it's true that It's Alive was a fake live album? I've heard that rumour for years.

It's real. The Ramones 2DVD set that came out a few years ago has film of the entire show.

Live and Dangerous is less fake than Visconti says, at least judging by boots from that era. Some vocal sweetening and some flubbed solos overdubbed for sure, though.

les rallizes denudes '77 live

though probably not released in the '70s exactly

No hesitation whatsoever: on your feet or on your knees it's the blue oyster cult!

http://media.fanfire.com/images/product/large/BSP/BSPCD023.jpg

Oh that's a pity, "Live at West Runton Pavilion" by Robert Rental & the Normal, was recorded in 1979 but released in 1980.

Band of Gypsys or Agharta.

No Before The Flood, no credibility

This is surprisingly not bad...

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/5186Zb-fLQL.jpg

The poll is what it is, and it's kind of annoying to have slog through album covers of every shitty live album that ever came out looking for any actually interesting comments. Seriously man, hardly any of the ones left out would be actual contenders except for just a couple like the Scorpions.

I like the UFO album because it consolidated everything great about the band and improved them over any of their studio albums. You could say the same thing for Cheap Trick but I think the UFO is more consistently great.

Gotta rep hard for Before The Flood. I actively hated Bob Dylan until I heard it. Granted, I was a teenager, but that was a pivotal album for me.

nick nolte playing before the flood over and over while he painted in life lessons was the moment when i decided 'ok, i need to check out dylan'. tbh that movie was ground zero for scorsese fandom for me also.

I probably posted this on another thread, but I read an interview with John Entwistle where he talked about hearing Leeds for the first time. The Who were touring the US when it was released, and he and Moon heard it in their hotel on a day off. As it started, they exchanged shocked glances, initially thinking it was a different band. "Is...is this us?!" They had never heard a live recording of themselves, and had no idea how good they were.

hahaha, that's pretty cool.

I love the image of Entwistle standing there stage left, too busy doing that spiderfingered play-bass-and-look-unimpressed thing to be bothered to really listen to the band while actually onstage

I love that Entwistle story and it's so true. On stage, you have no idea how you sound - the monitors have a different mix, the way the air moves is different, and you're so focused on your part and how your part works with what everyone else is doing, that you just don't have time. If at any point during the gig you're thinking "yeah, we sound great!" that means you're still not 100% in.

Can only imagine the intensity needed to be in The Who. Scot Halpin OTM

you're so focused on your part and how your part works with what everyone else is doing, that you just don't have time.

This is OTM. It's like the famous story about Sonny Rollins, where someone transcribed a solo he played one night, which Rollins took a look at and said, "No way could I have played that."

Also, the monitors they used in those days were, at best, side-stage speakers that only had the vocals.

Scot Halpin OTM

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5223059

I like this description from: http://www.drummagazine.com/features/post/scot-halpin-just-a-substitute-for-another-guy/

“To tell you the truth I was scared to death. Everything was crazy. The size of the drums was ridiculous. The tom-toms were as big as my bass drum. Everything was locked into place; anyplace you could hit there would be something there. All the cymbals overlapped. I started out hitting with the sticks normally but I had to turn them over to the fat end because I wasn’t making any sound. Back then monitors were incredibly awful. All I was hearing was the acoustic sound of the drums.

Yeah, Moon had everything on his kit double- and triple-reinforced. I think he essentially forced Premier to redesign their hardware.

Sadly, Halpin passed away in 2008.

No THE NIGHT THE LIGHT WENT OUT IN LONG BEACH, no sale.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

That Jefferson Airplane record cover is amazing. Reminds me of the "After Dark" screen savers.

Almost voted "Live at Leeds". Have never heard the Curtis Mayfield album (what a dipshit I am)! "Roxy & Elsewhere" is the best thing Zappa recorded in the 70s. But for all-round entertainment value and sheer WTFness voted "Take No Prisoners".

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

Wow; a clear winner, but a lot more votes than I expected, and covering a really broad spectrum.

Good results

Always think of this Jeff Beck quote when hearing Leeds:

There is no one who ever held a candle to them. Townshend, he’s not a finicky fiddly tiddley guitar player like I was, and like Eric and Jimmy were - we were always a bit fairy arsed about it - he was orchestral and he was this windmill orchestra with a couple of howitzer cannons on the side. They were too good.

I'm guessing it is all about money, but it seems considering how freaking many good old 60s backlog collections have come out, it seems kinda nuts that Led Zeppelin (and also Black Sabbath) don't really have that many board/simple tracked live recordings that have officially come out.

Obviously there are some well bootlegged shows like the Fillmore/Winterland that were recorded (like many things in the Grant empire) and early shows in Europe and many later shows sometimes for radio programes etc., but there is nothing to compare to say the Who let alone the Allman Brothers or undeniably the Grateful Dead.

Pink Floyd has started to have quite a bit of live music come out in secondary ways filling in some of the gap of their 70s discography and being a major rock act of the era that did NOT make a commercial release after the success of Dark Side.

One might think that such a huge act like LedZep would have been recording as often as the Who and Stones, but that appears to be the case. Ah well...but it would have been able to perhaps have a couple more big multitrack recorded full shows of Led Zep (and Sabbath).

Pretty much it seems "How the West was One" is kinda it and the somewhat tired first set of "The Song Remains the Same" is all that the bad will put out.

I kinda think the reunion record was not bad, but I kinda think the Cream might have been a bit better. (Yeah i know on EC...I've become a stan for Jack Bruce getting music geek into his discography. He's and interesting dude - one one hand he made fusion with Tony Williams and some serious cats but then he also made serious drug buttock with Leslie West and Corky from Mountain and made some eurohardcoke blues with Robin Trower and Gary Moore. His later discography also has two late studio records, a reunion with Trower, a tribute to Tony Williams AND a cool live gig with the DR big band. Pro musician doing interesting gigs for money (somewhat.)

In some of the excellent later released collections. I really dig this Deep Purple collection of a BBC gig with them right after Gillian joined (Feb 70) and spring (3/72) before (at beginning) of the big year which recorded 'Made in Japan' in August.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_Purple_in_Concert

There's a terrific almost 80 minute Zep radio concert from Paris in '69 that was added to the reissue of Zep I.

Also, FWIW the core of that Sabbath Past Lives thing was a Vol. 4 show recorded with the intent to release as a double-live set, but the band decided to shelve it and go forward into recording Sabbath Bloody Sabbath instead. It initially surfaced as quasi-legitimate release after Ozzy left.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xGB8zQd5Kjo

I don't get this thread at all. There were no Live albums until 1991.

Live The Death of a Dictionary came out in 1989!

how come Rick Wakeman's Journey to the Center of the Earth didn't make it here

One might think that such a huge act like LedZep would have been recording as often as the Who and Stones, but that appears to be the case. Ah well...but it would have been able to perhaps have a couple more big multitrack recorded full shows of Led Zep (and Sabbath).

I don’t think there’s more than 20 professionally-recorded Moon-era Who shows (though that number is low mostly due to Townshend’s insistence that the tapes of their 1969 US tour — all of which was recorded — be destroyed in a bonfire). And with very few exceptions, Moon was not adequately miked on those recordings, to a disorienting degree.

But with Zep, I think the dearth of official live releases is due to a combination of factors. For one thing, all band members have to agree on a release, and they’re rarely on the same page about anything. Plus, they were inconsistent at best as a live band — Angus Young said the audience in Sydney resorted to throwing paper planes around to keep themselves entertained. And Page is super exacting about putting out recordings that show them (him) in the best light: “Stairway” from HTWWW is a composite from three different shows. So with the exception of the Paris show, Zep isn’t just gonna release a full show warts and all.

No surprise on the winner, but the sentimental favorite has to be Kiss.

decided to listen to ELP's live album this evening in solidarity with the one person who actually voted for it. then re-read the thread and discovered it was me. lol

it's such an incredible mess/racket. sounds like shit and the band fuck up all over the place. Emerson and Palmer I get, their parts are insanely fast and Emerson often has to do two things at once, but what's Lake's excuse? he misses a number of cues, forgets some lyrics, and blows a lot of the dramatic bits. I think maybe he's kind of a bad live performer in general?? he also kind of saps the fun out of the band because E & P often have to slow down and play straight for him. though I guess that's kind of nice to hear because all Palmer does otherwise is play drum rolls every ten seconds. and Emerson just goes on forever!! "Tarkus" here is like a NASCAR race that suddenly hits rush hour traffic for the last mile. I like hearing him vamp but if you asked me I'd say that section goes on for like 20 minutes!!

Really surprised I never contributed to this thread. Maybe it was some other...

Grand Funk Live was the first album I ever bought with my own money. Played it to death.
Other favorite from that era of my youth: Ten Years After Recorded Live. Still love most of it, but these days I opt for Undead (1968)

Some from later in the 70s I used to like a lot:

801 Live (mentioned above)
Gong Est Mort
Be Bop Deluxe - Live in the Air Age
Steve Harley and Cockney Rebel - Face to Face
The Tubes - What Do You Want From Live