The 25 Best Live Rock Recordings
The Top Ten
Twenty years ago, All About Jazz published my article “Best Live Rock Recordings: 1969-1979.” It was an editorial decision to add the “1969-1979” to the title because, in the studied opinion of the editorial staff, I was painting with too wide a brush. I agree now. Trying to limit this to only rock music was problematic also as in the intervening years I realized all of the recordings that should have been included. I chose to continue this folly with the present list because this was the music, early on, that set a hook so deeply in my psyche that I could never see music as mere entertainment. It was always so much more than that.
The old list remains durable and is worth looking at here as we begin the top ten of our 2024 list, each with a single-line “description” from my fevered adolescent brain.
“Ain't gonna stop until the 25th hour / 'Cause now I'm living on blues power…”
“Blow your face out, Baby! “Wammer Jammer,” let me hear you, Dickie!”
“I lost my memory of where I've been / We all forgot that we could fly…”
“I was crowned with a spike right through my head / But it's all right now…”
“Daddy's gone and my brother's out hunting in the mountains…”
“So let us stop talkin' falsely now / For the hour's getting late…”
“This summer I hear the drumming / Four dead in Ohio”
“Now she drinks from a bitter cup / I'm trying to get her to give it up…”
“I’m temporarily qualmless and sinking…”
“But, someday baby / You ain't gonna trouble / Poor me, anymore…”
In hindsight, immediate criticisms are too much of The Band and Crosby, Stills, Nash, & Young, these groups making up 40% of the list.
Mia culpa.
The 2024 Top Ten Best Live Rock Albums looks quite a bit different than the 2004 edition, by half. The new list includes five recordings not previously considered, including the Number One selection, bringing to mind the words of Paul Simon:
“Now the years are rolling by me / They are rocking easily
I am older than I once was / And younger than I’ll be / But that’s not unusual
No, it isn’t strange / After changes upon changes / We are more or less the same
After changes / We are more or less the same.”
Mea culpa.😉