In the seventies it was standard procedure for a band to
release a Live album from their latest tour. This formed a dual purpose. One -
it was a cheap way for the ever greedy record company to extort more money from
their clients, and the ever gullible public. Two - it made it more difficult
for the pirate recorders to tape the Record Companies’ artists and put out
bootlegs on the ever willing fans, who wanted to hear their heroes in concert.
Whatever. The seventies were a wonderful era for those of us that loved the
“Live Album”, whether it was a single or a double album, or even a triple
in the case of Chicago. Almost anybody who was anybody had a live album put out
and most of them caught your favorite artist at a defining moment.
To name them all would be impossible. However, here a few of
those gems, not necessarily in any particular order.
Deep Purple - Made In Japan
U.F.O. - Strangers In The Night
Thin Lizzy - Live and Dangerous
The Who - Live at Leeds
Little Feat - Waiting For Columbus
Humble Pie - Performance Live at the Fillmore
Mott the Hoople - Live
Lynyrd Skynyrd - One From The Road
Jethro Tull - Bursting at the Seams
Joe Cocker and a cast of Thousands - Mad Dogs and Englishmen
Peter Frampton - Frampton comes Alive (the biggest selling
live double album ever)
Ten Years After - Recorded Live (which was to be surpassed
by the release of ‘Live at the Fillmore’ when it was finally released
thirty years after the event)
Grand Funk Railroad - Live (oh, come on, admit it you
enjoyed it)
I have to include Hendrix - In the West. Even though it was
released posthumously, it still really cooks and would leave any present day
guitarist’s album in its shadow.
Kiss - Alive - both One and Two (ah, come on, they were fun)
Lou Reeds - Rock ‘n’ Roll Animal
AC/DC - If You Want Blood You Got It
Free-Live
Aerosmith - Live Bootleg
Fairport Convention - Full House
Neil Diamond - Hot August Night (do not ccoff until you have actually heard it)
The Rolling Stones - Get Your Ya-Ya’s Out
Allman Brothers - Live at the Fillmore East
Emerson, Lake, and Palmer - Welcome Back My Friends to The
Show That Never Ends (now they also had to release a live triple album just to
get half their show on one release)
Ted Nugent - Double Live Gonzo
Hawkwind - Space Ritual Live
Uriah Heep - Live
Rory Gallagher - Live in Europe
Genesis - Live (the first one with the classic five piece)
Derek and the Dominoes (also) - Live at the Fillmore East
Slade - Alive
Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young - Four Way Street
And I have to include Nutz - Live Cutz, but I refuse to
include Led Zeppelin’s - The Song Remains the Same. One listen to the release
of ‘How The West Was Won’, released in 2003, will show you what a pathetic
live release that was. I apologize for anybody’s personal favorite I have
missed out, but as you can see, there were quite a lot of fantastic live albums
from this glorious era. One band that is glaringly obvious is Black Sabbath,
who did not get to release an approved live album until the turn of the
millennium.
One person who nearly had his entire career ruined by the
live album was poor old Bob Seger. This album was recorded in Cobo Hall in
Seger’s home town of Detroit in 1975, and unfortunately caught this very
talented band on a bad night. There are so many bad things about this
recording, it is difficult to know where to start. The selection of songs is as
good as any. For such a great songwriter as Bob Seger, why! oh why! are there
so many covers?
The show kicks off by the band butchering Tina Turner’s
‘Nut Bush City Limits’. What they do to Van Morrison’s ‘I’ve Been
Working’ and Bo Diddley’s signature tune ‘Bo Diddley’ should have the
band up for musical murder. Not that the band does any favors to Bob Seger’s
own songs. The version of the moving ballad ‘Turn the Page’ can give even
the hardest cowboy a tear in his eye. The studio recorded version is taken at
such a ridiculously fast pace that one can only assume that the band members
had one thought in common - going home. Merely the last two songs, Seger’s
own classic ‘Get Out Of Denver’ (who Eddie & the Hot Rods covered
better anyway) and the final rave up on E. Anderson’s ‘Let it Rock’, when
the band finally lets it all hang out, give the album any credibility.
The production of this paper thin album is credited to Bob
Seger and Punch. I feel it would have been better off left to Judy. Anybody
having seen Bob Seger and the Silver Bullet Band live in concert will know that
they can turn in a good show. Anybody having listened to this album would not
believe you. The album cover is also as rushed and as rubbish as the music
within.
A
thriller this week, written by Massimo Carlotto and translated from the
original Italian by Christopher Woodall. The Italian author Carlotto has
experience of Latin America, having been ‘on the run’ there for several
years. He also has experience of the Italian legal and penal system (from the
inside) having spent some years as the guest of the carabinieri, although
apparently he was pardoned after five years behind bars.
Zero
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