I used to use a live album as a way to get into a new band, as the chances were that they would play their hits on the album. So Supertramp, genesis, Bob Seger, a few others I all got into by first listening to their live material. But pretty much after that, once I had the studio albums I didn't really listen to the live ones again. It could be fun, yes, to buy a (slightly illegal, by which I mean totally illegal) bootleg on the way out of a gig, so you got to hear and relive what you had just experienced, but again, soon afterwards I found the gloss wore off. Oh, and they were a good way of demonstrating to someone who couldn't make the show what they missed. By and large though, bootlegs were bad bad quality; you could usually hear people singing along beside the bootlegger, talking about something else or just cheering. Hard to hear the music often.
These days I will seldom if ever buy a live record, for pretty much the reverse of what I used to do: now that I have the studio output I don't intend to pay for the privilege of hearing it live, esp when I'm not there. Plus you can get a better vibe usually from a DVD of the concert if you want it. There can be a certain spontaneity to a live gig however that you won't get on vinyl, sorry CD, showing my age there! I remember once I went to see Hawkwind and they were supported by a band called Bronz. The sound rig broke down and when it was fixed they asked the singer to test it, which he did by singing the Cadbury's Flake advert (you know: only the crumbliest, flakiest chocolate, tastes like chocolate never tasted before) and the crowd went wild. Well, it was a spur of the moment thing but I went to the next night's gig and he did the same thing, revealing in Kerrang! that the promoters had liked the response so much the first night that they prevailed upon him to repeat it the second. But it wasn't as good because now we expected it, and it was more stilted because even he didn't really want to do it.
Now, a recording of the first night would have shown you the magic of that moment versus the calculated idea of the next night and the next. So sometimes yes, you can get things happening on stage that won't in the studio, but is it worth buying a whole album for that one moment? Not sure. Of course then you have the likes of Springsteen and Waits, and others, who tell entertaining stories before their songs when playing them live, so does that justify shelling out? Maybe. Some bands though just seem to play the songs the same as they would in the studio, and that for me is a real cop-out and it's pointless buying an album of that stuff.
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Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018
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