Week 4: 25 Best Live Records of all time.

[Swish]

Stand In The Fire--Warren Zevon: In danger of being lumped in with every other sensitive singer-songwriter in L.A., Warren Zevon made sure the world knew his sensitivity was a little different than most by singing about disturbed individuals who may or may not have been him. And then he made the band play really loud so he’d have to scream his lyrics and sound like a deranged madman.

Here's another that will probably cause a few of you wonder how this made it on the list. I really liked this guy and saw him live a number of years back in Scranton(around 1996 I believe), albeit an all-acoustic show that, while not great, was pretty good overall. What struck me later was how both he and his opening act from that night, Chris Whitley, both died from lung cancer not too many years later; Warren in 2003 and Whitley in 2005.

Getting back to Warren, one local music critic/reporter called his show from years earlier in Wilkes-Barre, when he was still downing a fifth of scotch on a daily basis, the best live show he had ever seen. I wish I had been there for that one. I liked this writer a lot and had to think it was a great show.

Swish

[Mr MidFi]

Nooooowwwwww yer talkin'! This has long been one of my favorite live albums. The bad news is that, for many years, it was unavailable on ceedee. The good news...it was finally released to ceedee last year, with excellent bonus tracks and onstage banter included.

Back in my misspent youth, working at a record store, I wore out the vinyl on our promo copy. And I mean "wore out" in the most literal sense. Much to the consternation of some of our 'morally righteous' patrons (there's a brief story about this in the "My Morning Commute" thread).

The reviewer gets it about right here, and if there is one negative that deserves mention, it's that WZ seems almost too self-conscious about NOT making this record a 'sensitive singer-songwriter' album. It flat-out rocks. But the most powerful moment comes during the introduction of the uber-sensitive "Hasten Down the Wind". Hearing a now-dead man tell us that "as one who has abused privilege for too long, I just want to say it's good to be alive" adds a poignant coda to one man's life in song.

RIP.

[kexodusc]

22nd best live album ever, huh? Meh...

[thekid]

I can't comment on this album but I am a fan of WZ. I have a Jackson Brown bootleg tape from probably 73-74 where he covers Mohammed's Radio and Werewolves of London before I think WZ's first album was even released.

[jasn]

I need to seek this out, but to be honest I'm still recovering from reading his bio "I'll Sleep When I'm Dead". I've gotta stop reading about all my rock heroes, cuz reality does them no favors.

[Davey]

Be closer to the top on my list. Hadn't really been that many fiery live records at the time that captured a series of shows so well. Kind of a magic time in rock music, when one artist could be popular, yet still be thought cool by the "inner circle" of the music geekdom, and be critically acclaimed, loved by fellow musicians, courted by the studio lizards, and make some pretty frickin' good records with great music, top class musicians, and professional production. Don't often see something like that come all together in one place.

[emesbee]

I don't know about best of all time, but I reckon The Pretenders 'Isle Of View' is pretty good.