So good live…

I first fell in love with live albums early on. My passion was two-fold, first I would imagine being in the band on stage, second I was fascinated by a live album capturing a moment in time. I might be listening in England in 1976 but I was hearing, perhaps 1968, at the Fillmore East. It seemed fabulously romantic.
I got off to a great start with Made In Japan by Deep Purple. I loved the way they stretched out songs, the improvising love was entrenched with Live Cream Vol II and Humble Pie Rockin The Fillmore. I remember vividly  thinking that the longer the tracks, the better. I loved the half hour of Dazed And Confused from Song Remains The Same and Mountain’s Dream Sequence from Flowers Of Evil, also 28 minutes long.
ELP’s Pictures At An Exhibition seemed so live, you could feel the space it was recorded in at Newcastle City Hall. The crucial thing about those records was improvisation. I still can’t see the point of reproducing the studio version accurately in a live setting. What’s the point?
And they set the template for what I believed a good live album should be. I don’t think there was any I didn’t collect from Quicksilver Messenger Service Happy Trails to Todd Rundgren’s Back To The Bars from big stadiums like Oakland Cooliseum on Johnny Winter Captured Live to small clubs like Klooks Kleek on Ten Years After’s Undead.
We were fortunate that so many bands in the era were so good live, hardened on the road from hundreds of gigs every year. So recording them in concert stretching out was no problem. Funny then that initially they were often budget albums, fearful of the accusation of recycling existing material.
I would always play the longest track first. I don’t know why. I think I thought it would be their best work. This being said, I never understood why anyone included a drum solo. They must have been aware that few enjoyed them.
By 1979 the only band I liked who hadn't done a live album was Black Sabbath and very often the live record was a band’s best release. At one time live albums were about a third of the collection. It’s ironic that now, with endless legacy releases by long defunct bands are being released all the time, giving us a chance to hear music played live 50 years ago.