Artist that you think are even better Live than recorded

I love Dropping The Writ.

 

Samantha Fish. Her recorded music is pretty good but live she absolutely blew me away! If you haven't seen her live do it ASAP.

 

Thanks, never heard Ms Fish before. I'm still in awe of youtube and the interwebs. Almost everything ever recorded is at our fingertips now. It makes the old and new easy to dig into and get to the bottom of things.

Dylan can be hit and miss live. The best I've seen him was on tour with Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers at a Brisbane football pitch. The Heartbreakers never left the stage and Petty's set was fat! Dylan came out with three backup singers and of course his vast repertoire. One of the best ever for me.

 

Melvins
Wilco
Mr. Airplane Man
Los Lobos
Motörhead

 

Johnny Winter!!!!

 

Emily King. she's phenomenal.

 

Drive By Truckers, Lucero

 

The best show I've seen was also my first rock concert: The Pretenders opening for The Who. Would have been '78ish
The Pretenders had just hit with Brass in Pocket. Chrissie has an actual voice and she can really sing, not one of these folks who can be made a singer with studio wizardry. The drummer (Martin Chambers?) must have broken 10,000 drum sticks that night. He would splinter a drumstick into hair-like shreds and have another one in his hand so fast he literally did not miss a beat. I am thinking he must have been coked to the gills.
The Who had a commanding stage presence without costumes, flash, or effects. Just used their sheer personality force to captivate 18,000 people. Roger Daltrey had his mic taped up about 3 feet down the cord, and would swing that thing 30-40 feet into the air. Pete Townsend played black teles. Kept handing them off and getting fresh ones, also so fast he didn't miss a beat.

k.d. lang puts on a good live show. Saw her at TPAC in Nashville in the mid-90s. It was all note-perfect; could have been a studio recording sound-wise, but she does have a stage personality too. The stage was set up like an old Lawrence Welk show, with the musicians sitting behind decorative stands and a machine spewing bubbles all over the stage. She is really good at using a microphone - I'm not being sarcastic - she is constantly moving the mic closer and farther away and changing the angle to get the sound she wants. As powerful as her voice is, she holds the mic at arms' length when she lets loose to keep from blowing up the speakers.

The Neville Brothers are very good live. For the number of musicians and how loosely structured a lot of their stuff is, it's astounding how tight they are.

Saw the Pretenders again in the 80s on their Middle of the Road tour; another very good show. The drummer was not nearly as coked up, many trees were saved. Another show of black teles - both Chrissie and the lead guitarist were playing them. I think Chrissie may have had a white one, too.

Shelby Lynne did an outstanding show in Nashville of big band type stuff. She was kind of Sinatra-esque, short hair, black pinstripe vest, snapping her fingers. Sang great, great onstage, and the perfect playlist for what they were up to. Not surprising because Nashville, but I think it was a waste of time trying to shoehorn her into a mainstream country act.

 

Last weekend I saw a folk music supergroup called the Sherpas. They were amazing. I have their CD. It's excellent. They were better live.

The Sherpas are Tom Prasada Rao, Tom Kimmel and Michael Lille, I think. They were incredible live.

 

oops I already played this game

 

I quite liked Matchbox 20 when it first hit the radio. Went and saw them live and was shocked how much raunchier/ guitar driven they were. In fact I went 2 maybe 3 times and enjoyed every one.

My first ever concert was Little River Band at age 13 when John Farnham had just joined....absolutely loved it and still take pleasure in recalling the memory 30+ years later.

The band Live, were also unreal in person. I enjoy there music but Live, live were truly excellent.

Ben Harper when he first toured with the Innocent Criminals was also amazing. The musicianship just flowed from that stage. Of real standout was the Bass player.

We had the Stone Temple Pilots over during the last reunion and while a medium fan, I was surprised how great they were live too. Compared to some of the you tube footage I had seen i wasn't expecting much but they were really great. Once again the Bass player had some magic about him.

Edit: have tickets to Jason Bonham show tomorrow night. His Led Zep tribute.....am hoping to be blown away but am trying to temper that expectation so as not to be disappointed if it isn't. Finger crossed.

 

Elbow, a British band who seem to have been around forever. No guitar heroics to be seen, just beautiful melodies, lyrics that mix true emotion with dry northern English humour and an interaction with the audience that is unmatched in my experience.

 

Hiya.

Same for me, best ever show was my first rock concert, the then young and still vital Ozlandian rockers Cold Chisel. Tore the house down. Proper wild, teetering on the edge of mayhem and disaster rock and roll. Never experienced anything like it since. Kinda like my first movie theatre experiance in 1978 being Star Wars - nothing’s ever really lived up to it. Some of their albums are good, but nothing like the live experience.

Stevie Ray Vaughan would be a close second. Saw him in the same smallish town hall, stood right in front of him, within arms lenght (of his boots). Mind blowing. Again, outstriped the albums.

Pax/
Dean

 

The best I've seen in terms of being able to reproduce live as good as, if not better than, how they sound on record is Rush. I've seen them 16/17 times when they've toured the UK and the attention they take to every detail of the sound (and lighting) is astonishing.

In the early days (I saw them at the second gig in the UK - Free Trade Hall in Manchester) there were, understandably, a lot more "basic" in terms of the gear they had available. However, although I'd been to hundreds of gigs by that time, that was the one that made me realise that a lot of bands were short-changing the audience with sloppy playing and poor soundchecks.

Santana is another example of a band that has always sounded at least as good live as they do on record. I've seen them several times, too, and their brand of latin rock always seems to lift my spirits.

Come to think of it, it's probably no coincidence that the bands I choose to see repeatedly are the ones where the ones that are as good live as recorded.

Most recently, Winery Dogs, Deep Purple, Steven Wilson, Sonny Landreth and Blues Caravan have all been great live. Maybe it's modern gear / PA systems that's making the difference....?

 

Gatemouth Brown

Alice Kooper

Snooks Eaglin

Jeff Beck

Santana

Chicago (1970s)

John Mayall

 

1973 Faces, despite the lack of Ronnie Lane and Rod eyeing up the exit.

Hall & Oates in Leeds and Sheffield around 1976

Santana in Leeds around 1976, but not at Wembley in 1980 when they were disappointing.

Pretenders, Dr Feelgood, Ian Dury & the Blockheads, Don Maclean, The Who, Rockpile mid/late 70s

Martin Taylor, 1994

And more recently Wilko Johnson.. Wilko's voice is not the best, on reord there is no escaping it, but live you are much more aware of the interplay between Wilko and Norman Watt-Roy to notice any failings in Wilko's singing.

 

From the one's I've seen:

Dire Straits '93
Fugazi
The Roots
Pantera
The Residents
Cecil Taylor
REM '95

 

John Meyer, Stevie Ray Vaughn (Hands down best live), Tedusci Trucks Band, and a shout out to Slightly Stoopid as their live and direct album is the good stuff.

 

Michael Bloomfield, BB King

 

You, sir, are clearly a man of discernment and taste

Seen 99% of those guys. Haven't seen Wilko since Dr Feelgood days and I haven't been able to get to his gigs of late. Feelgoods and Blockheads punched way, way above their chart positioning. Awesome guys live. Norman is also one of the great unsung heroes of the bass.