Live albums: love them or loathe them?

[Carnage]

Hit and miss, as you'd expect but the obvious king of the hill is Live After Death as has been mentioned. Metallica Seattle '89 of course. Napalm Death's Live Corruption is the only death metal live album worth hearing, DM and black metal live albums generally sound awful - to me anyway.

Swans Are Dead and Dead Can Dance's two live albums are immense, the first DCD one has plenty of new material. Nick Cave And The Bad Seeds: Live Seeds is another flawless one, and most of The Cure's live output is astounding.

[mickO)))]

Live albums are great. A lot of the time a good live recording is better than the studio version. One thing I hate with live albums is it's either the full show or nothing. I don't want 10 live songs all from different shows like entangled in chaos or 85% of the show with one or two songs cut like the rebirth of dissection or the last live Blasphemy album because the pricks at Osmose wouldn't give permission for the Gods of War songs to be included on the album.

I also love live DVDs which sadly are on the decline thanks to youtube and people accepting that everything be digital / tied into being logged into the internet.

A major missed opportunity was never getting an official live Pantera DVD the live footage on the Cowboys from Hell VHS is great imagine having the entire show.

Marduks - Warschau is a great example of how to do a live recording CD / LP is one entire show then the DVD is 3 different shows. Everything on it sounds great.

[OpenSores]

As live albums go I've always enjoyed The Year of the Voyager.

[leatherface]

Recent ones I enjoyed:

Ministry: In Case You Didn't Feel Like Showing Up

Accept: Staying a Life

Dokken: Beast From The East

Blind Guardian: Live

[Sworntothecans]

Recent ones I enjoyed:

Ministry: In Case You Didn't Feel Like Showing Up

100% this.
It's savage. Best version of So What and The Land Of Rape and Honey too!

[Mooncat]

I would rarely reach for a live album, but they can be great if the mood hits.

It really depends on the band though as realistically, once you remove the fist-pumping energy and visuals of being there, most bands are just somewhere around decent live. Pretty good recreations of their songs, but nothing really special. For a live album to work the band has to be either absolutely savage live, or the feeling of being there really comes across; the Maiden and Pantera ones spring to mind.

Either that or the music really lends itself to the live setting because the musicians are incredible and every show is different, like a Hendrix live album or any number of Miles Davis or James Brown live albums.

[Cosmic_Equilibrium]

I love live albums. You have to determine the ones which have the least amount of overdubs (though I still like some of the more obviously fixed ones) but a good live album is usually better than practically any studio one.

The best example is Rainbow. Live In Germany 1976 is Blackmore's peak - he's absolutely wild on it, shredding everywhere - and the energy is unreal. Compare the studio version of Sixteenth Century Greensleeves to the live one on here, it's no contest. More energy, more of everything.

Most times the definitive version of a song will be the live one.

Some of my favourite live records:

Hawkwind - Space Ritual
Rainbow - Live In Germany 1976
Allman Brothers - At Fillmore East
Iron Maiden - Beast over Hammersmith and Rock In Rio
Led Zeppelin - Celebration Day
Neil Young and Crazy Horse - Year of the Horse and Live Rust
Deep Purple - Mk 3 Final Concerts
Thin Lizzy - Live and Dangerous
Lynyrd Skynyrd - One More From The Road
Black Sabbath - Live At Last
The Who - Live At Leeds and Live at The Isle Of Wight 1970
Judas Priest - 98 Live Meltdown
Metallica - Live Shit: Binge and Purge
Rory Gallagher - Check Shirt Wizard Live '77
Joy Division - Les Bains Douches 1979

This isn't including bootlegs......... there are so many great performances out there.

[Black Shepherd Carnage]

Deadly list 

[Black Shepherd Carnage]

or any number of Miles Davis

I spread this question out to non metal listening mates and one of them came back about the amount of classic jazz albums which were recorded completely live in a day or two.

[Cosmic_Equilibrium]

I should point out that a good example of an artist where you really need the live albums more than anything else is Rory Gallagher. I'm not a huge blues rock fan and threfore I don't listen to his studio output much. But his live albums are something else and that is where he shines. So Irish Tour 74 and Check Shirt Wizard 77 are my go to, along with this, which is absolutely phenomenal:

[Yung Led Zeppelin]

Love a good live album, few that immediately spring to mind

Bongripper's recordings from Roadburn just do something the studio version (which I love also) doesn't

Altar of Plagues put out a recording from a club they played in Bucharest shortly enough before that horrific fire that killed a lot of people, as a sort of tribute. It's a little rough but I love it

Venturing out a bit, I really think King Gizzard properly shine as a live band, I'd stick on live albums of theirs pretty often. This one in particular (filmed professionally as well of course, as is their wont) is great

[TurnTheAirBlue]

Operation: Livecrime... Forgot about that one. Amazing performance.

[Barrytron]

"Staying a Life" and "When Satan Lives" are the two that spring to mind for me

[Trev]

Kiss Alive! is probably their definitive album, it's what I'd usually stick on if I'm in the mood to listen to them

On the other side, Down's Diary of a Mad Band has to be one of the worst live albums I've ever heard

[Pagan Saviour]

Surprised to see When Satan Lives mentioned, one of the worst distortions I've ever heard committed to tape. Were they using metal zones?