The idea that what is supposed to be a live recording may not be was touched on off topic in another thread and I thought it might be interesting. The performance you're hearing may have been overdubbed, sweetened by applause, edited and tinkered with in such a way that almost makes releasing it dishonest. I would bet that this happens on almost any so called live album, especially nowadays.
I offer 1968's "Live Yardbirds featuring Jimmy Page", released on Epic Records in a last gasp attempt to make a buck out of the band, who had recently broken up. The show was released pretty much as it was performed except for some obnoxious bullfight cheers dubbed in during and after songs. Page sued to have Epic recall the album and cease selling it, which they did. Page still keeps a heavy thumb on any release of it through his attorneys.
I've read that the first Eagles live album was heavily overdubbed after the fact. Heard the same things about the first Grand Funk live album. In the other thread I found out that Frampton Comes Alive has crowd applause from a Grand Funk concert.
Any other examples? Are there any live albums that are a true representation of an artist's show?
Motörhead's "No Sleep 'til Hammersmith" was really recorded live but certainly had the crowd noises overdubbed.
The Who Live at Leeds much of JE's tracks were re done in the studio because his mike on the cabs failed.
The echo on Live at Leeds isn't on the original tapes.
One of the most famous Dutch live records, Cha Cha by Herman Brood, isn't completely live either. The band recorded it live at a studio with audience. Herman Brood himself couldn't play piano and sing at the same time yet, so some of his piano is mixed in later. They also left spaces for saxophone. Each time Herman shouts 'featuring: Bertus Borgers!', the band leaves some space and afterwards Bertus new it was time to do a sax solo. The applause was also mixed in later.
According to the book by Levon Helm an awful lot of The Last Waltz is overdubbed. Levon and Robbie weren't on speaking terms already and Levon refused to overdub his drums. Acoording to him almost everything else is re-recorded later. Of course both have a fight, so I doubt this a little. Of course there are overdubs but I think not as much as Levon is claiming.
I heard a story about the most succesfull Dutch MOR-artist Marco Borsato. He works with the finest session musicians, but an engineer spent half a year cleaning and mixing the soundtrack of a live-DVD. Every snare hit was put in the right place by ProTools, bad sounds were replaced and so further. And the Ducth audience thinks this is live...
QuoteThe Who Live at Leeds much of JS's tracks were re done in the studio because his mike on the cabs failed.
That is something I didn't know. My favorite live album.
Two of my favorite albums are live albums that have been doctored afterwards in the studio.
One of them is Live & Dangerous by Thin Lizzy. A lot of overdubs on the backing vocals, lead vocals and bass parts and some of Gorham's guitar.
Brian Robertson ensured me he refused do any overdubs.
The audience is dubbed in too. One of the songs (I think it was Sothbound) was even done at a sound check rather than during the concert.
The dates that are stated on the sleeve are not the real concert dates.
The other Live album that is among my favorites is Strangers in the Night by UFO. This album has also been doctored with.
I'm not sure if it's true, but I believe Schenker left UFO because he didn't want to do any overdubs.
I have some of the original recordings and it makes you wonder why they bothered to do these overdubs at all...
QuoteI'm not sure if it's true, but I believe Schenker left UFO because he didn't want to do any overdubs.
Schenker left UFO because the lifestyle was killing him. I interviewed him on an MSG tour. He said that he felt he wouldn't physically live if he did one more UFO tour.
I'm at the point where I don't even care anymore, but...
Kiss Alive!, by all accounts, was almost entirely re-recorded - according to Eddie Kramer, with all the jumping around it was tough to be consistent. IIRC, only the drums and part of Ace's guitar was from the actual shows. The crowd noise was also fattened up for effect. Whatever the case, it sounds like a great live album.
Re UFO's SITN - Probably Schenker's best work - If it was recorded in a bathroom stall it would still be amazing.
Quote from: rockinrayduke on October 19, 2008, 09:10:55 AM
Heard the same things about the first Grand Funk live album.
Not sure about this. I have the original double LP release of this album. As far as you can believe liner notes (or Terry Knight for that matter) They make the point that the recording was unadulterated. Sure sounds clean to me. One of, if not "the" most raw sounding classic rock albums of all time IMHO.
Cant say the same for the David Tedds remastered to CD version of the same album.
I can't remeber which band it was, but a friend once made me listen to a live album of a not very well known band. When he pointed soe thongs out it was also clear to me, the adience were sheering in a loop! Some certain shouts came back after every couple of seconds:)
I'm kinda surprised Scott didn't mention this but I'm pretty sure that Slade ALIVE is just that - It's very raw sounding no polish here, in my book the best real "live" album. Somewhere in my modest household I have a Polydor promo copy of it, Jimmy Lea and his Gibson at their best ;D
Quote from: TBird1958 on October 20, 2008, 01:25:38 AM
I'm kinda surprised Scott didn't mention this but I'm pretty sure that Slade ALIVE is just that - It's very raw sounding no polish here, in my book the best real "live" album. Somewhere in my modest household I have a Polydor promo copy of it, Jimmy Lea and his Gibson at their best ;D
I am not myself right at the moment, still reeling from the lay off and my mind is just full of ideas for the future. Slade Alive is a excellent real live album. Lets not forget Mott The Hoople Live ,talk about raw live rock and roll ! One of my all time favorites and still in along with Slade Alive in heavy rotationin my cd player.
I agree about Slade Alive, has to be real. Get Down and Get With It my favorite cut.
The first Grand Funk album wasn't doctored at all, Don Brewer said, in fact the band only found out after its release that live albums of other bands were often doctored. And then followed suit on their mid seventies Caught in the Act which is doctored.
Schenker has always denied that he left UFO because of a guitar solo and it probably wasn't as simple as that. But Ron Nevison is on record for saying that it was Michael who - ever the perfectionist - wanted to rerecord a solo on Strangers in the Night and that Nevison would not let him because he liked the original. Two tracks were recorded live in the studio though with audience applause added.
The Eagles Live outing is hugely doctored, especially as regards the vocals. Some of them were dubbed in a studio on the East Coast, others on the West Coast - Frey and Henley couldn't bear to even see each other back then. When Timothy B. Schmidt was asked in an interview whether The Eagles' backing vocals were always live because they are so pitch-perfect, he laughed and said: "Let's put it this way: The Eagles take great care that everything always sounds right!"
Judas Priest's Unleashed in the East is usually called "Unleashed in the Studio" among insiders and the later Live album from the Turbo tour sounds incredibly doctored in my ears too.
I think the first Grand Funk album certainly sounds honest as does the Slade one. Deep Purple's Made in Japan is utterly undoctored, songs that weren't good enough just weren't used (they left off the Black Night encore because it sounded too knackered, later CD releases saw it reinstated and guess what: It does sound knackered!) , but the Mk III line up's Made in Europe is cut and paste as is much of Rainbow's On Stage. Deep Purple's eighties "Nobody is Perfect" is at least honest as it credits Child in Time to a North American and a European location - the song starts one place and ends in another, spliced together in the middle.
These days, I'm cynical of live albums and especially DVDs. DVD soundtracks of "live" concerts are often so heavily doctored that they begin to look mimed (as they probably are!), Whitesnake's Live DVD from two years ago is just laughable in that respect with a totally overblown studio sound that has nothing to do with how a rock band sounds live.
Have to agree DP's Made In Japan is awsome.
Beck Bogert Appice Live in Japan sounds undoctered but then Becks guitar playing is like Tiger Woods on a bad day....ie still genius just not as genius as usual.
Whitesnakes Live in the heart of the city double LP was 2 different shows I believe. (Hammersmith Odean and ....cant remember now) But sounded pretty clean to my previously delicate young ears. I'm not particularly a big fan of the post '87 Whitesnake so I cant say about the later stuff. I do remember Our drummer at the time having 2 copies of Saints and Sinners. One was a complete American re-production job of the original Euro-Australasian release. It was weird comparing the 2. The "For USA release only" one sounded so west coast, slick and syrupy I nearly :puke:. I remember being amazed at how much the production had trampled the actual music.
Quote from: uwe on October 20, 2008, 04:15:52 AM
The Eagles Live outing is hugely doctored, especially as regards the vocals. Some of them were dubbed in a studio on the East Coast, others on the West Coast - Frey and Henley couldn't bear to even see each other back then. When Timothy B. Schmidt was asked in an interview whether The Eagles' backing vocals were always live because they are so pitch-perfect, he laughed and said: "Let's put it this way: The Eagles take great care that everything always sounds right!"
The live DVD from the Eagles "When Hell Freezes Over" has a lot of overdubs too.
A few years ago we were in a recording studio. The engineer showed us the live DVD in the control room. He disconnected a few speakers of the 5.1 system, so we only heard the center speaker signal. And all of a sudden some of the doctoring became very clear! You saw Don Henley sing and play the drums on Desperado. But a certain point he does a drum fill and you don't hear any drums, just vocals... If this would have been truly live you would have heard some bleed on the vocals.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vsLylyEoLDo
The Ronnie James Dio live stuff that I had - Uwe mentioned Rainbow's On Stage, and also Black Sabbath's Live Evil - always has beautiful harmonies with the second vocal sounding incredibly virtuosic, like Mr. Dio himself...
The original vocals on the Grateful Dead live album Europe '72 were supposedly terrible (big surprise! ;) ), so somewhere I read that they duplicated their live setup on a soundstage and rerecorded the vocals under controlled conditions that felt somewhat like it was "live." But of course there are millions of audience-recorded live tapes out there, and the Dick's Picks and From The Vault series as well as other recent multitrack live releases are relatively undoctored - no overdubs, but often the track order is altered slightly, or two or three shows are combined to make it seem like one show, etc. Does anyone listen to the live Dead stuff for the vocals anyway? 8) Does anyone here even listen to the Dead??!!!!
Quote from: Freuds_Cat on October 20, 2008, 05:24:39 AM
I do remember Our drummer at the time having 2 copies of Saints and Sinners. One was a complete American re-production job of the original Euro-Australasian release. It was weird comparing the 2. The "For USA release only" one sounded so west coast, slick and syrupy I nearly :puke:. I remember being amazed at how much the production had trampled the actual music.
Slide It In was done that way - are your sure that's not the one you're remembering? The Brit version was more keyboard and bass-heavy, with Micky Moody was playing guitar alongside the late, great Mel Galley. When John Sykes joined the band, he did some overdubbing, and that was included on the US release. Naturally that added a heavier, less bluesy flavor. Also the UK release had Colin Hodgkinson on bass (Neil Murray on the US version), plus an extra track ("Need Your Love So Bad")
Ever listen to the original versions of "Here I Go Again", "Fool For Your Loving" or "Crying In The Rain" compared to the re-recorded versions included on the "Posersnake" late '80s albums?
:puke:
Yep you are right Lowend1, it was Slide it in. My memory from that period is fading faster than I'm comfortable with 8)
A whole bunch of Whitesnake fans here in Adelaide started referring to them (post '87) as HairSnake.
Quote from: Freuds_Cat on October 20, 2008, 04:03:32 PM
Yep you are right Lowend1, it was Slide it in. My memory from that period is fading faster than I'm comfortable with 8)
A whole bunch of Whitesnake fans here in Adelaide started referring to them (post '87) as HairSnake.
I'm all about stage presence an' all, but there should be no licking of bass guitars
anywhere, by anyone at any time.
Mmmm, BTW - just thought of another one that was great, but might have been diddled with - Foghat Live
I can think of one live bass solo that definitely should have been modified in the studio........ :vader:
Did anyone say Michael Anthony? :rolleyes:
Ah, Live at Leeds! Brilliant stuff. I'm well aware that it's far from a purist album. But you know, I have doubts about this story about the bass being re-recorded. Why?
* I haven't turned up anything else on Google claiming that the Leeds gig had the bass overdubbed.
* Two gigs were recorded: one at Leeds, one at Hull. Wikipedia says about Hull, "technical problems with the recordings from the Hull gig — the bass guitar had not been recorded... " Engineer Bob Pridden says the same thing at http://www.thewho.org/leeds.htm . So I wonder if the rumor started from that story, getting a crucial detail wrong as so often happens with rumors.
* At http://www.thewho.org/leeds.htm there's a lot about vocals being overdubbed, echo effects being added, cable noise being digitally removed from the bass track ... but no mention anywhere of the bass being re-played. It doesn't seem like they're trying to hide anything, so why omit that?
* The original bass sound would have bled significantly into the vocal mics and drum mics ... into John's vocal mic at least, and probably Roger's too. There's a generally weird comb-filtery sound to a lot of the reissue that I think is due to all the bleed. (A tangent: Bleed from the bass is really evident on the Isle of Wight DVD where the bass seems to have been under-recorded and you can hear the bass sound oscillating like crazy when Roger swings his mic around!) What's my point? That in almost 30 years of obsessive listening to Leeds in its several editions ... I have never noticed any bass guitar bleed that sounds like it doesn't sync up. Not even a hint of phantom bass. I can't imagine anybody, including Entwistle, being able to play along with 120 minutes of that wild improvising style and nail every note so perfectly that no ghosts are audible.
* On the reissues, the bass sound is fairly consistent between the stuff that was on the vinyl version and the stuff that wasn't. I doubt they would have taken the time to overdub the entire concert's worth of material back in 1970, and I also doubt they could have done new overdubs in 1995 or 2001 that so closely matched such a quirky original tone.
I could be proven wrong, of course. But until some evidence turns up, I'm going to assume the bass tracks are original.
Sorry for the soapbox rant. Carry on ;D
I think I'm with Slinkp. I als heard about Entwistles vocals (and maybe bass?) in the first song.
There are botlegs out there without the tape echo of Pete's guitar (I believe 'officially' it's the sound of Pete's SG boucing to the wall and returning?!?) and the bass on those bootlegs could prove things.
Well, such threads are always a good reason to listen to the album again. And again:)
A friend of mine in England told me that, how true it is I do wonder. The only difference I can find between versions of LAL is that the vinyl album version of my generation has a different bass solo than the expanded CD release version. I always had my doubts about the bass tracks being rerecorded. I hope I'm wrong !
Now that's interesting. I don't have the vinyl anymore (it was my dad's and he sold his entire vinyl collection without even telling me!).
I don't remember the bass solo sounding different, but I haven't had a chance to play them side by side.
QuoteI'm going to assume the bass tracks are original.
Thanks Paul, my faith in Live at Leeds has been restored! And yes the bass solo on MG is different than the vinyl version.
Does anyone else love MTHL ? with out a doubt one of my favorite live albums. #1 Live at Leeds. #2 MTHL #3 Slade Alive (Slade is third because it is so early in their career the best songs were yet to come) Really MTHL is full of that teatering on the edge excitment that you just don't find on live recordings anymore. Please tell me I'm not alone !
Yeah, it's a great album - an old fave. The only problem is that Ariel Bender is on guitar instead of Mick Ralphs...
Two other killer (but underrated) live albums:
Bob Seger - Live Bullet
J. Geils Band - Blow Your Face Out
I've Got Mott T H Live and you are right it does have that edginess like they are flying by the seat of their pants. Great Album, sometimes here and there, Ian Hunters voice is just a bit too flat for me. But hey I still love listening to it.
Maybe if they do a remaster they can run his voice track through an Auto tune. ;)
Quote from: lowend1 on October 23, 2008, 05:24:27 PM
Yeah, it's a great album - an old fave. The only problem is that Ariel Bender is on guitar instead of Mick Ralphs...
Two other killer (but underrated) live albums:
Bob Seger - Live Bullet
J. Geils Band - Blow Your Face Out
I love Ariel Benders (Luther Grovsner) playing ! Mick is great also but to me Ariel is the BOMB ! Ian's flat ? Oh come on that's the charm.
Quote from: godofthunder on October 23, 2008, 05:56:00 PM
Oh come on that's the charm.
Yeah I hear ya and I'm with you on it. Still the Live album is a little more than usual..... I will blame the foldback OK? ;D
Hey I wonder whatever happened to his big "H" shaped guitar?
http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=bY82OS0jntw
Love this vid not just for Mick Ronson but also the RD
http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=yvVJvRWqh00
Quote from: godofthunder on October 23, 2008, 05:56:00 PM
I love Ariel Benders (Luther Grovsner) playing ! Mick is great also but to me Ariel is the BOMB ! Ian's flat ? Oh come on that's the charm.
I have to second the initial opinion. Ariel Bender/Luther Grosvenor is no Mick Ralphs or Mick Ronson. There is an album version of I believe Roll away the Stone (or another single of theirs) with Mick Ralphs playing a nice melodic solo and a single version with Ariel supplying a barrage of squeals which sounds like he caught a cat in the studio, miked it and then proceeded to yank away at its tail. And an unmusical cat at that. ;D Even Ian Hunter is on record for saying that Ariel was a mistake musically and that Mick Ralphs' departure to Bad Co led to the demise of Mott the Hoople because, while looking great on stage, Ariel could not cut it in the studio, something Hunter realized quickly, but unfortunately not quickly enough. I saw Ariel when he was Luther again with Widowmaker, he was less than impressive and some of his solos were even mocked/pastiched by Ted Nugent that evening who was headlining.
Ralphs left in part out of frustration that his songs were rejected by Ian Hunter who found it hard to sing in the keys Mick preferred. The opening riff of Bad Co's "Can't get enough of your love" also graces an older Mott the Hoople track (though the verse chords are different) and while I prefer Hunter to Rodgers as a lyricist, frontman and for his sheer attitude, it is obvious that Rodger's range took the riff (which uses open tuning) to another level.
BTW, Ian Hunter, for all his qualities (and I have a dozen solo albums of the man), was never about
not singing flat. ;D
I have an old Ian Hunter LP out in my shed that I haven't played (or seen) in years. Didn't Jaco play on on one of his albums?
Jaco played on All American Alien boy. Ian is also on record saying Ariel was great live but not the foil he needed in the studio