Live Albums, And The Responsibility Of Artist To Fan

I heard Lulu sing at B.B. King's about five years ago. She looked and sounded great. "Oh Me, Oh My" made my knees buckle. Then, the song everyone was waiting for, was introduced like this--

"We worked up a new version of an old favorite for you."

UH-OH!

The sold out crowd stood frozen, as one of their favorite songs of all time and possibly the only reason they were in this club in the first place, was now being served as a new reggae tune. Talk about a crushing disappointment. "To Sir With Love," Lulu's signature song and biggest hit, now sounded like Ya Mon & The Meat Patties playing the pool bar at the Jamaican Hilton.

For years, I'd see Todd Rundgren and he never played "Hello It's Me." It never bothered me that much. I didn't care either way because there was too much I wanted hear instead. But many did want to hear it including my mother, who I did take to see Todd back in the 80's. She does love "Hello It's Me" and guess what? He played it...but mocked the whole thing, mucking up lyrics and rearranging the music. It was one step above Bill Murray's hilarious SNL lounge act. My mother was crushed.

Have you seen this clip?

Say what you want about Billy Joel. I know there are a lot of haters out there, but even he knows "We Didn't Start The Fire" isn't very good. Still, he plays it anyway because it was a hit and the fans want to hear it.  I saw Aimee Mann at Town Hall years ago and someone called out for "That's Just What You Are," a song she co-wrote with Glenn Tilbrook, and one I would have loved to hear myself, and she replied, "I am so tired of playing that fucking song." And she didn't play it. Thanks Aimee.


Prior to Jimmy Page's recent campaign of releasing vault material, Led Zeppelin's only live record was the soundtrack to the ill-fated and mostly unbearable concert film, "The Song Remains The Same." While the film is a mess, I have always loved the double live set. It is flawed, and pieced together from a week of 1973 performances at Madison Square Garden, but that doesn't take away from the music itself. I am not here to sell the LZ haters. But as a devoted fan, there was something amazing about hearing extended jams of songs that ran half the length on the studio records, especially in 1977 when YouTube and BitTorrent and high quality bootlegs were not at your fingertips.  Since then, and just a few weeks ago, Page released "How The West Was Won," a complete document of the band's June, 1972 performance in L.A., and it really and truly might be definitive.

David Bowie's two live outings, 1974's "David Live" and 1978's "Stage" were both huge disappointments at the time, because they both sounded fake, and in some ways, they were. The former had issues with the recordings from the Tower Theatre in Philly, and vocals and some instrumentation needed to be overdubbed after the fact, creating a record that had backing vocals louder than anything else on stage. The latter was sequenced out of the original running order of the performance and faded out after every song, dispelling the illusion of being at a concert. These records, especially "David Live" and "The Song Remains The Same," are examples of artists radically changing arrangements and yet somehow, I don't mind as much. I've warmed up to both of Bowie's live records, but neither are faves for the reasons mentioned. I look at the Bowie records as two more Bowie records as opposed to live documents.

Jeff Lynne's recent reboot of ELO just released a live record from Wembley. The arrangements are so dead on, it sounds like a DJ is playing the "Greatest Hits" record to a soccer stadium full of people. What's the point of that?

The reason I've written all of this is because I listened to "The Clash At Shea Stadium" this weekend. It is a record that I have had for years. I played it then, enjoyed it, and hadn't thought about it since. I saw a cheap vinyl copy this weekend and grabbed it and it absolutely knocked me out!

I was at Shea in 1982 and I recall nothing, except maybe a lot of people and some rain. I couldn't tell you about The Who's performance and I don't remember seeing David Johansen at all. As for The Clash, if I had been blown away back then the way I was blown away this weekend, I would have still been talking about it 36 years later. I was especially taken by "Rock The Casbah," which I posted above. If 50K screaming Who fans were going to buy this band from England, it was during the performance of their biggest hit in the US, and The Clash rage through it, almost completely abandoning the funky groove of the studio version by simply bashing through the verses. It's different and it works! The whole record feels like this.

The Clash played like a band that had been together for 25 years instead of 5 and maybe that's the key. That fresh desire to impress, became one of the hottest sets of music I have ever heard. They weren't yet tired of their material, but instead were still excited by it enough to add new life to each song, even when there was still plenty of life to be had. Arrangements mixed up just enough to keep the band on their toes, but still faithful enough not to alienate fans old or new.

"The Clash At Shea Stadium" is my new favorite live record, at least for the time being. It reminds me of why I love music and why I used to go and hear more bands than I do now. It also proves that even in 2008, there was still a way to create real product for fans to hold, keep and go back to time and again.