The live albums listed in this section have been awarded a review rating of 28 out of 30.
My reviews are scored on the basis of:
Set List – 10
Performance – 10
Authenticity & Atmosphere – 10
but when I review I also have an overall rating in mind and I have to reconcile the two scores. I refuse to follow the logic of 110% success and giving any album 11 out of 10 but it does mean the occasional compromise.
These are listed in alphabetical order rather than any preference:
James Brown Love Peace Power
Joe Cocker Mad Dogs & Englishmen Live
Sam Cooke Live At The Harlem Square Club 1963
Deep Purple Made In Japan
Genesis Seconds Out
BB King Live At The Regal
Al Kooper Live Soul Of A Man
Van Morrison It’s Too Late To Stop Now
Van Morrison Astral Weeks Live at the Hollywood Bowl
Bill Nelson Live In Concert At Metropolis Studio
Graham Parker Live In San Francisco
The John Renbourn Group Live In America
Bruce Springsteen Live In Dublin
Supertramp Paris
Traffic The Last Great Traffic Jam
The Who Blues To The Bush
Wings Over America
Yes YessongsNeil Young Live Rust
The biggest surprise to me was the Bruce Springsteen album with the Seegers Band. I’d been ignoring this for years because I expected it to be full of dreary acoustic songs but it’s an eclectic collection of roots music which is a lot of fun.
Very few albums will get a higher score of 29 out of 30 and I don’t believe the perfect 30 out of 30 live album exists.
To Terrapin Hartford ’77 is a live album by the Grateful Dead.
It was recorded at the Hartford Civic Center in Hartford, Connecticut on May 28, 1977.
My Rating – 28 out of 30 (9 +10 + 9)
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Ladies and Gentlemen… the Grateful Dead Fillmore East New York City 25th to 29th April 1971 is a live album by the Grateful Dead.
These concerts provided some of the songs for the Dead#s second live album, Skull And Roses.
My Rating – 28 out of 30 (10 + 9 + 9)
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The Last Great Traffic Jam is the punning title of a live album and DVD by Traffic.
It was recorded during their reunion tour in 1994 as the support act for the Grateful Dead.
My Rating – 28 out of 30 (10 + 10 +8)
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Live In America is a live album by The John Renbourn Group.
It was recorded at the The Great American Music Hall in San Francisco, California on April 18,1981. Renbourn revives the spirit of Pentangle with the presence of singer Jacqui McShee in the band.
My Rating – 28 out of 30 (9 + 10 + 9)
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Live: Soul Of A Man is a live album by Al Kooper, founder member of Blood, Sweat & Tears and The Blues Project.
It was recorded at The Bottom Line club in New York City on February 4,5 and 6 1994.
Kooper is performing with three different bands, Blood, Sweat & Tears disguised as Child Is Father To The Man, Blues Project and his own band, the Rekooperators. I don’t know if he played a night with each or the bands shuffled on and off the stage. On the album, the songs are interspersed without any jarring changes.
My rating – 28 out of 30 (10 + 9 +9)
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Mad Dogs & Englishmen Live is a live album by Joe Cocker.
It was recorded on the 27th and 28th March 1970 at the Fillmore East in New York.
In 2005 an extended version of a double CD was issued. A few songs were recorded at the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium.
The following year a six CD set was issued with the early and late shows from both days at the Fillmore East.
My Rating – Standard Album – 26 out of 30 (8 +10 +8)
My Rating – Deluxe Album – 28 out of 30 (9 + 10 +9)
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Bruce Springsteen with The Sessions Band Live in Dublin is a two CD (and optionally a DVD) of concert performances recorded over three nights in Dublin in November 2006. Previously the band had been billed as the Seeger Sessions Band but that had caused early parts of the tour to be poorly attended.
That’s a great shame because anyone who comes to this album with an open mind will want to have had the chance to join in the fun personally. That’s my warning that in no way is this a traditional Springsteen album.
In fact, it’s almost as if this album has been beamed in from a parallel universe where Springsteen didn’t record Born To Run, Darkness, The River and Born In The USA but continued the inspiration of his first two albums with a deep interest in folk and jazz influenced music.
This has opened my eyes. It seems that I was very blinkered about Springsteen. Anything between 1974 and 1978 is fantastic and essential. The rest ranges from very good to OK. Bruce with the E Street Band is better than without.
Listening to this album time and time tells me that I was wrong and I should pay more attention.
Paris is the first live album released by Supertramp. It was recorded in November 1979 in Paris on the tour to promote their mainstream breakthrough album Breakfast In America.
I remember seeing Supertramp on the Even In The Quietest Moments tour in 1976. I don’t know why but I can remember feeling the bass continually thudding into my chest, something that even Black Sabbath didn’t manage to achieve. Of course, with Sabbath I may have been too worried about protecting my hearing to notice.
Supertramp have never fitted into my definition of progressive rock so I’m treating them as an art rock group.
A combined DVD/CD release called Live In Paris ’79 has the missing six songs from the original concert and is therefore a more sensible purchase.
My Rating – 28 out of 30 (9+9+10)
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Live In Concert At Metropolis Studio is a live recording of a concert in March 2011 by Bill Nelson and the Gentlemen Rocketeers in London.
It comes as a 2 CD plus DVD set or you can buy it as an mp3 download without the video.
If you’re not familiar with Bill Nelson, he was the main man – singer, lead guitarist and songwriter – in art rock group Be Bop Deluxe.
Immediately he broke up the group, he recorded another excellent album, Sound On Sound as Bill Nelson’s Red Noise. Then he abandoned his guitar in favour of keyboards and released many albums of electronic and ambient music.
His Wikipedia entry shows how difficult it is to keep up with the music that Bill Nelson has been releasing.
he’s come back into the spotlight with a cracker.
My Rating – 28 out of 30 (9 + 10 + 9)
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Love Peace Power is a James Brown live album recorded in Paris (France) in March 1971.
This is a very different James Brown than was featured on the famous Live At The Apollo 1962. The high energy soul and r&B tunes are out and in their place is hard driving funk.
If you’re a late comer for James Brown, this is probably much more how you expect him to sound when he was in his prime (he was coming up to his 38th birthday).
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