Now more than ever is a time to celebrate live music. After a miserable period during which the world ground to a halt and you (quite rightly) couldn't go near the postman or the neighbourhood cat, let alone cram yourself into a dingy venue with a thousand other sweating humans, live music has returned.
Summer is obviously the season of gigging, but not everyone has been fortunate enough to bag a ticket for Glasto, Wireless or any of the other big events of the season. Happily, some of music's most sensational performances have been committed to tape – some re-engineered and reissued since, some left untouched – so lucky attendees can relive the experience while the rest of us are given the opportunity to experience and enjoy a piece of history.
If the thought of large gatherings of mask-free folks still makes you anxious, but your itch for live music needs to be scratched, we're here for you. Simply track down the live albums below on your choice of streaming service – or, better yet, purchase them on CD or vinyl – crank up your system's volume dial and let the atmosphere wash over you.
Sinatra at the Sands by Frank Sinatra (1966)
From the opening drum-fill and typical Las Vegas introduction ("The Sands is proud to present a wonderful new show: a man and his music!") you know you're in for a peach of a sonic time-capsule. Expect Sinatra at his funny, engaging, incomparable best, from Come Fly With Me through to the last song of the evening, My Kind of Town. The Chairman's glorious vocal stylings are impeccably accompanied by Count Basie and his orchestra, conducted and arranged by Quincy Jones and recorded live in the Copa Room of the former Sands Hotel and Casino in Vegas.
Who knows what the transfixed crowd were guffawing at during certain moments as a 50-year old Frank continues to croon? We like to imagine the Sultan of Swoon engaged a waiter or member of the crowd in a bit of slapstick. Not sure if he had the comedy chops to do it live? Just wait for the Tea Break monologue, where Ol' Blue Eyes spills the tea on certain members of his Rat Pack cohorts – including lovingly calling out Dean Martin as "an absolutely unqualified drunk". Sublime.
Comfort y Música para Volar by Soda Stereo (1996)
Comfort y Música Para Volar (Spanish for Comfort and music to fly. You knew that) is actually a part-live, part-studio album, but it's so good that we're including it anyway. The first seven tracks were recorded live at MTV Studios in Miami, Florida, for the show MTV Unplugged. The final four tracks are Sueño Stereo studio outtakes – the seventh and final studio album recorded by the Buenos Aires-based Latin rock legends, released in 1995 and considered one of the most important alternative rock records in Spanish.
Comfort y Música Para Volar was released by BMG Argentina in 1996 and is notable in that Soda Stereo didn't adhere to the use of acoustic-only instruments, using for most of the televised set conventional "plugged" kit – rare, both for MTV and for a Latin band. See the fading "Un" part of the word 'unplugged' on the album cover? That's why.
Roseland NYC Live by Portishead (1998)
Many landmark performances took place at the now-closed New York institution in its 95-year history – from ballroom dances to Beyoncé – and Portishead's 1997 show was among the most memorable: a defining moment in the history of trip hop. The band's only live release, which reached CD and DVD in '98, is a haunting encounter as Beth Gibbons's vocal hangs above a 35-piece orchestral accompaniment. The imperious Sour Times and atmospheric Roads are particularly beguiling.
Thelonious Monk Quartet with John Coltrane at Carnegie Hall (2005)
In 2005, Larry Appelbaum – a now-retired jazz specialist in the Music Division at the Library of Congress – made quite the discovery while rummaging through old Voice of America tapes. He found reels labelled Carnegie Hall Jazz 1957, the never-broadcast recording of Thelonious Monk and John Coltrane's two-set benefit concert on 29th November that year, played in aid of the Morningside Community Center in Harlem.
For jazz fans, this discovery was all of their Christmases rolled into one. The Monk-Coltrane quartet, which had been playing together for months, is well practised – that much is obvious – and this presentation perfectly frames 50 minutes of impeccably focused performances from the two jazz greats.
Jonny Cash at Folsom Prison (1968)
The first of Cash's prison sets that would serve as a renaissance for his career after a lacklustre, drug-addled period, and cement his now-indelible outlaw image, has rightfully gone into the books as his most definitive album. As soon as his introduction is met with 2000-odd inmates' rapturous applause, his wry jokes and wild charisma are on full display as, in top-top form, he tells tales of murder and incarceration to galvanic crowd response.
Unplugged in New York by Nirvana (1994)
This intimate recording of Nirvana's performance for the MTV Unplugged series, released seven months after the passing of Kurt Cobain, is widely considered one of the best live records of all time.
It probably wouldn't have been had they simply followed the accepted format of stripping down hits to bare-bone acoustics, but in playing toned-down renditions of mostly lesser-known material and unexpected covers, they produced an intimate, candid performance that put Cobain's raw talent fully on show.
Sunshine Daydream Veneta by Grateful Dead (2013)
Fresh from their 1972 European tour – and the triple live album that became one of the band's most commercially successful releases – Grateful Dead erected a stage beneath the Old Renaissance Faire Grounds in Veneta, Oregon to throw a benefit concert for the struggling Springfield Creamery.
The successful fundraiser – tickets for which were printed on the company's yogurt labels – saw a 20,000-strong crowd gather on a sweltering summer's day to witness perhaps the greatest Grateful Dead live performances of all time. It is as alive, vibrant and fluid (just listen to Dark Star...) as their reputation as one of history's best jam bands dictates.
Following lengthy copyright issues, the original 16-track analogue master recordings of the complete concert were mixed down to stereo and released 41 years later, to be granted mythical status among Deadheads.
Live and Dangerous by Thin Lizzy (1978)
Phil Lynott and his motley band of cheesy Irish rockers absolutely fired out some of the 70s and 80s most iconic rock tunes, matching the spirit of their original recordings with some of the most exhilarating live performances you could hope to find.
Live and Kicking, described by the NME as the greatest live album of all time, has earned its place in the pantheon of classic records, live or studio, stuffed to bursting point with hit after hit, from The Boys Are Back In Town to Dancing In The Moonlight. Lynott is the main attraction here, obviously, his swaggering yet smooth vocal delivery at the heart of what made Live and Dangerous, and Thin Lizzy as a whole, such an electrifying proposition.
Minimum-Maximum by Kraftwerk (2005)
It's safe to say Kraftwerk were a little late to the live album party. Minimum-Maximum wasn't released until 2005, more than three decades after the electronic band first performed live. The Grammy-nominated album was worth the wait, though, with a predictably sublime, classics-rich setlist recorded during several dates on their 2004 world tour.
The album had already been mixed by the time the band reached Chile, much to the disappointment of Ralf Hütter who said, "the Chileans were the only audience in the world who clap in time, in perfect synchronisation", but the record is nonetheless a must listen for any Kraftwerk fan.
Before the Dawn by Kate Bush (2016)
With 155 minutes of music across three CDs, or four records, you're getting your money's worth here, folks. Quantity complements quality, as anyone who attended the 22-date Hammersmith Apollo, London residency in 2014 will tell you.
Presented as raw as a steak tartare, Before the Dawn manages to convey the nights' atmosphere almost as well as the music. Everything from the emphatic rendition of Lily and the surging strings opening Cloudbusting, to the elegiac inflections of her near-perfect vocal in Dream of Sheep and Among Angels, begs to be played through a proper hi-fi system.
Aretha Live at Fillmore West by Aretha Franklin (1971)
Aretha Franklin's third live album is a gleaming advert for her raw vocal talent and prowess as a live performer. Full of life and a sense of occasion, as a live affair should be, it's a wonderful soul display, backed by the tremendous King Curtis' band. The zesty, almost unrecognisable covers of Simon & Garfunkel, The Beatles and Stephen Stills songs are the cherries atop the cake, along with a nine-minute reprise of Spirit in the Dark featuring Ray Charles.
Special Moves by Mogwai (2010)
Fans of the Scottish post-rock quintet would probably agree that the 14-year wait for a live release was worth it the day Special Moves hit the shelves. Studiously comprised of one or two tracks from each Mogwai album released at the time, and patchworked from three recorded shows in Brooklyn, it is the format that perhaps best serves the band's brooding, stratospheric ambience.
Committing to the purchase? The extended CD package gets you six additional tracks as well as the tour's insightful live performance documentary, Burning, on DVD.
Unplugged by Alice in Chains (1996)
Nirvana’s performance in New York tends to steal much of the limelight from other contemporary MTV Unplugged sessions, with many quite rightly hailing it as one of the finest live recordings ever. Don’t ignore fellow grunge pioneers Alice in Chains’ similarly superlative performance at the Majestic Theatre in Brooklyn, though, an equally stripped-back recording highlighting the sincerity and sadness of one of the genre’s more heavy-minded exponents.
Down in a Hole is the album’s standout recording, benefitting from the intimacy of the setup and allowing lead singer Layne Staley and guitarist Jerry Cantrell’s dual harmonies to really shine through, and you'll want to feel the genuine anguish from the vocal delivery of lines such as “look at me now a man who won't let himself be”. No wonder somebody once described the gig as like watching “a man singing at his own funeral”.
Alive 2007 by Daft Punk (2007)
This Grammy Award winner is an exhilarating example of Daft Punk's engineering artistry – a relentlessly buzzing montage of their most popular tracks executed in a 90-minute set at the Palais Omnisports de Paris-Bercy. It is an all-out audio assault that will lay your system's propensity for attack bare. Not one for a snoozy Sunday evening listening session, mind you.
S&M by Metallica (1999)
Metallica released S&M2 – a live album of the 2019 shows they performed to mark the 20th anniversary of the original S&M tour, reuniting them with the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra – on 28th August 2020. Who knows whether it will ultimately stand the test of time in the band's illustrious discography, although attendees of said shows will doubtless have snapped up the full four-LP, two-CD, one Blu-ray disc set.
Whatever its fate, it will do nothing to dilute the iconic recording of the 1999 S&M concert at the Berkeley Community Theater, where metal and symphony collide to menacingly macabre and melodramatic effect.
Spaces by Nils Frahm (2013)
Spaces is an entrancing collection of Nils Frahm's soaring soundscapes that, as the German composer himself deftly puts it, expresses his love for experimentation. It was recorded over two years at various locations on multiple mediums, including cassette decks and reel-to-reel recorders.
While there's as much attack as there is ambience throughout this varied work, its beauty is in the subtlety and space of the intimate, interweaving piano and synthesizer compositions. A masterpiece.
Live at Wembley '86 by Queen (1986)
The decade. The stadium. THAT JACKET. We couldn’t really omit it. After all, this surely has to go down as the most famous live performance of all time, doesn’t it?
It seems inconceivable that some writers even now cite Queen’s Wembley performance as being anything other than a majestic tour through some of the most recognisable, accessible and downright enjoyable rock bangers of all time, but that’s music journalists for you.
For those of us who still appreciate the joy of being alive, Queen’s performance in ‘86 gives genuine goosebumps, and that’s through the semi-permeable barrier of watching poorly rendered video clips on YouTube. Imagine actually being there in the flesh. England may be crap at football, but Freddie and the boys finally gave us something to cheer about.
The Allman Brothers Band at Fillmore East (1971)
A triumph for its demonstration of the tight-knit interplay between the band members, as it is the stellar bluesy jazz-infused setlist itself, this yardstick live classic was fittingly performed at a venue that was pivotal to their career. The set is seemingly effortless, free and full of naturally virtuosic musicianship – a highly skilled, exploratory and spirited jam that indeed deserves its preservation in the Library of Congress as, "culturally, historically, or aesthetically important".
Stop Making Sense by Talking Heads (1984)
Experienced with or without the exceptional concert film it soundtracks, Stop Making Sense perfectly captures one of the world's biggest and best art rock bands at the peak of their powers. It's a giddy, dynamic and fresh-sounding performance, from the bare-boned, acoustic rendition of Psycho Killer to the all-in funky Burning Down the House – and you don't need the film's visual proof to tell that David Byrne was in top thespian form. Justice was paid to it by its success in the charts, where it sat for 27 months.
Muse Live at Rome Olympic Stadium (2013)
Sometimes with live music, it all simply comes together; the venue, the setlist and the performance are all on point. Like many albums on this list, the recording of Muse's Stadio Olimpico gig in the summer of 2013 is one of those examples. In front of over 60,000 up-for-it fans, Matt Bellamy and co. put on a phenomenal show and technical tour de force that, while most apparent when heard alongside the pyrotechnics and massive video walls on the accompanying DVD/Blu-ray, the CD album does credit to as well. Grand and atmospheric: just what a Muse live recording promises.
John Coltrane Live at Birdland (1964)
Well, the first three tracks on this album (Afro-Blue, I Want To Talk About You and The Promise) were recorded live at the famed New York City jazz club, anyway; the final two (Alabama and Your Lady) were recorded at Van Gelder’s Englewood Cliffs studio weeks later.
Still, that cannot detract from the immensity of these timeless recordings. The cohesion between McCoy Tyner, Jimmy Garrison and Elvin Jones on Afro-Blue is faultless, and in our opinion the show stealer, while the second half of Coltrane's extended I Want To Talk About You is an interesting tenor-led reimagining of his popular ballad.
Frampton Comes Alive! by Peter Frampton (1976)
A seminal album of the 1970s, which in America sold around a million copies in its first week and stayed in the top 40 for nearly two years, Peter Frampton's iconic double live album came at an important time in his career. He'd left Humble Pie to go solo five years earlier and had been only modestly critically and commercially received.
That would all change soon after Frampton Comes Alive! appeared in January 1976, derived from his concert tour the previous summer and confirming him a top rock attraction. Charismatic, electrifying and of course notable for his then-innovative use of the talkbox, it's worth owning alone for the 14-minute rendition of Do You Feel Like We Do.
Jimi Plays Monterey by Jimi Hendrix / The Jimi Hendrix Experience (2007 release)
Jimi Hendrix's talent was nothing short of prodigious, and it's on full display as Jimi and his (also exceptionally talented) backing band give one of the most visceral evocations of what it meant to be a rock n' roll band during the late 1960s.
The concert itself was recorded in 1967 and has been released in various iterations and forms since, most recently in the form of Live at Monterey from 2007 which includes bonus tracks from a live performance that took place in Chelmsford of all places. If you want a more polished reproduction of Hendrix's superlative abilities, go for the 2007 release, but for a purer, more unfiltered sound, the 1986 version has its charms.
The Who Live at Leeds (1970)
It won't come as breaking news to many reading this that The Who's Live at Leeds is widely cited as one of the best live rock albums of all time. This on-campus classic – a performance played to 2000 students at the University of Leeds Refectory – could have never materialised, of course, had Pete Townshend not demanded that their sound engineer burn the tapes of the live recordings they had made from their many recent dates on the road.
Thankfully, their persistent wish to break away from their rock opera Tommy tour, and show off the intensity of their live performance, saw them book this Leeds gig on Valentines Day for the recording. And the rest really is history.
Unplugged by Neil Young (1993)
It was a case of second time lucky for Neil Young's MTV Unplugged taping, with the first attempt in December 1992 leading to an unhappy Young walking out of the Ed Sullivan Theater mid-performance. Young apparently wasn't all too enamoured with his second attempt at Universal Studios in Los Angeles the following February, either, but he allowed MTV to air it all the same.
Well, we like it, Neil. Both acoustic performances and setlist are peak Neil Young, with Harvest Moon, Long May You Run and the previously unreleased Stringman emotionally raw and melodically consistent.
It's Too Late To Stop Now by Van Morrison (1974)
This live double album, recorded in Los Angeles and London during Van Morrison’s 1973 summer tour, is a quintessential snapshot of the singer at his peak, heightened by the backing of Caledonia Soul Orchestra's horn and string arrangements.
It's a setlist comprised of his own hits and renditions of the music that inspired him – Ray Charles's I Believe To My Soul and Sam Cooke's Bring It On Home To Me to name just two – though those seeking Brown Eyed Girl will need the 2008 remaster or his latest, multi-volume release from 2016.
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