When you heard a particular band's live album first, did you find that the studio versions weren't as good once you heard them?

Case in point..... when I bought KISS Alive, and then heard their first 3 albums, I found that those songs on the studio versions didn't sound as good, and that was my 13 year-old brain deciphering that back then.

More examples from my own experience....

Rush - All The World's A Stage
Frampton Comes Alive
UFO - Strangers In The Night

In my opinion, it's just the band(s) are just better live than in the studio. I think Gene or Paul from KISS stated that they were never able to capture what they did live in the studio when it came to those first 3 albums.

Then you have Rush and Kansas who sound dang near perfect when it comes to reproducing their songs in concert.

Every Grateful Dead song is better live except for “Box of Rain,” “Ripple,” and “Friend of the Devil.”

All the songs from Springsteen's Darkness on the Edge of Town album sound better on his live box set.

Agree about KISS, I came in on KISS Alive also and the studio versions always sound dead to me. Destroyer sounded good but then the follow ups Rock N Roll Over and Love Gun are hit and miss.

Same thing with Frampton, the live album is awesome, his studio stuff, eh.

There really were some great live albums in the 70s including Rush's All The World Is A Stage, love that one, played it to death back then.

I know that many here don't like The Who's "Endless Wire". I heard and saw several live shows from that tour. As with many Who songs, those were much better in a live setting than they were in the studio.

But those Kiss “Alive” records were basically studio recordings, sooo......

I get your point, but isn't KISS a bad example? Wasn't KISS Alive basically all overdubbed in the studio?

edit: Oops! ted262 beat me to it.

I know that's what they say but why does KISS Alive have so much energy (just adding crowd noise doesn't change the music) compared to the plodding prior studio albums?

They've come so far in recording live performances, that almost all of my preferred band song versions are live; the energy is better, the talent of the band (or not) is more obvious, and the emotion of the fans really helps. It especially helps that almost all power metal bands are putting out a live album per tour.

The only thing I don't like about it is when they don't properly mic the crowd for sing-a-long chorus type songs, and you lose the vocal line when the singer is quiet. The Scorpions Big City Nights was the first example of that that I noticed, but it's always annoyed me.

Echoes by Pink Floyd is a reverse situation for me. I know that song inside and out. So, when I heard the song on Live At Gdansk by David Gilmour (with Rick Wright playing keys), that version outdoes the Meddle version, hands down.

All The World's A Stage is a great album. I seriously can't listen to the studio versions of the songs that are on it. That version of 2112 is tops to my ears. I think a lot of it has to do with Lifeson's guitar tone. ATWAS is a heavy album. In fact, I think that's the heaviest Rush has ever sounded.

The early 1970s BBC versions as well as the Pompeii version send chills down my spine no matter how many times I hear them.

With me, whenever I heard a live version as my first introduction to a particular band, it makes the big impression which the causes me to fall in love with the music. By far the live album that had the biggest impact on me was “One More From The Road” by Lynyrd Skynyrd that was recorded at the Fox Theatre in1976. We got it right after my friend Jon and me saw them blow the Doobie Brothers off the stage in 1977 at the Nassau Coliseum. I had never heard of them before that show. The show and the album were so powerful to us. It was the album where we got much of the material for our H.S. rock band. We still talk about that show.

Generally, I prefer live to studio for similar reasons. The exception is when the band is being too faithful to the studio recording; however there are exceptions to the exceptions (Eurythmics at the Greek in 86 comes to mind).

Another live album that blows away the originals.... Foghat Live. It was my first Foghat album. That should've been a double disc. I'm still blown away by the power of that perfomance(s). When I hear Fool For The City (studio version) on the radio, I cringe.

i love the 4 way street version of southern man, stunning in every respect.

"this is usually a really long song folks, and we're gonna play real slow tonight"

I find 4 Way Street virtually the only live album I can sit and listen to and actually enjoy. Live concerts - great! Live albums - not so much for me.

The Duke Ellington band's performance of "Diminuendo and Crescendo in Blue" at the 1956 Newport Jazz Festival.The audience response to it,particularity Paul Gonsalves' sax solo,revitalized Ellington's career.

Pretty much I prefer all of the live versions on Joni Mitchell's Miles Of Aisles to the studio versions.

I absolutely love live recordings and have 3,000 or 4,000 concerts in my archive. My favorite is a solo acoustic recording of a 1987 Bruce Cockburn show from Michigan Theater. I typically prefer boots because they aren't edited or overdubbed.

My amazing coincidence, Gonsalves and Ellington died within nine days of each other, and lay in wake near each other at the same funeral home in NY.

Every performance on Talking Heads Stop Making Sense is superior to the studio versions of those songs, IMO. Not even close. I find a lot of bands play too fast in the live versions (The Rolling Stones for instance) and the studio is better. Then again, maybe if I'd heard the live ones first I would think the studio was too slow?

"Live music is better
Bumper stickers should be issued"
-Neil Young, "Union Man"