audioexchange

Over the past decade or two, bands, on the nostalgia circuit, have been performing fan favourite albums in their entirety, and it has been wildly popular. I believe that this started with Pink Floyd performing the “Dark Side of the Moon (DSOM)” – as part of their “Division Bell Tour” – from which the live album “Pulse” (with flicking LED) was released. Not to be outdone by his former colleagues, Roger Waters toured DSOM in the mid 00s and then toured “The Wall” for several years to massive arena audiences. Indeed, Waters has long discovered that there is a major payoff playing his own Pink Floyd material versus his solo work. Again, Waters released his live version of “The Wall” in multiple audio and video formats. I dare say that, before he retires, there will be a visit to “Wish You Were Here” and “Animals.”

Since about 2005 virtually all heritage artists have gotten in on the live album performance scene. Everyone from the Cure (“Trilogy”) to Suede to Cowboy Junkies to Ocean Colour Scene have been trotting around performing their best albums. In many cases the fans’ enthusiasm for recent releases was low or, in many cases, the had been no recent releases. In fairness to Suede, when they toured “Night Thoughts” and “The Blue Hour” – the album was played in full for the first half of the gig, followed by a greatest hits package in part 2. One summer I paid huge money to see Springsteen playing “The River” and U2 playing “The Joshua Tree.” In each of these cases, the artists in question were still recording high quality original albums – and could easily fill stadiums – so the motivation to do the nostalgia circuit was curious.

Is the whole album performed live a cynical exploitative exercise? No, it is business. I spent years looking for bootlegs of concert performances around the time of a favorite album release – to enjoy the fresh sound of the record and crowd response. Then the record companies started releasing those recordings as part of “Deluxe Edition” packages. It is astonishing how the music industry did not appreciate the treasure trove of live material earlier.

“Cover Albums” are an interesting curiosity. For example, Ben Gibbard, of Death Cab for Cutie, loved “Bandswagoesque” by Teenage Fanclub so much that he recorded the album himself. Mercury Rev covered “The Delta Sweetie” (Bobbie Gentry) in its entirety. Both albums are fun but not compelling. Similarly, for years Mojo and Uncut magazines featured promotional CDs of cover albums – each track covered by a different artist or band. These have included “Harvest” “Abbey Road” “Let it Be (released on vinyl)” “The Wall” “The Dark Side AND WYWH” “Rumours” “The Songs of Leonard Cohen” “Pet Sounds” “Blond on Blond” “Highway 61” and “Something Else” (my favourite Kinks record). A few years ago, while moving house, I discovered that I have boxes and boxes of cover mount CDs, going back a couple of decades – and really they had to go in a dumpster/skip. Which ones did I keep? The “cover” albums of course– all of which I enjoyed and supposed that, someday, they may have some value.

Fifteen years ago I went to see the “Donald Fagen Band” in the Tower Theatre, Philadelphia. This was the “Morph the Cat” tour – but only 3 songs from the album (and this was probably appropriate) were played. The crowd wanted to hear “The Nightfly” – and yes – that included me. I must confess, I didn’t care if Fagen played anything else. And, delightfully, most of the songs from that album were played. About a year later I went to see “Steely Dan” at the same venue with what appeared to me to be the same band, this time including Walter Becker. When Becker died, any pretence that Steely Dan and the Donald Fagen band were anything different became ridiculous. But, strangely, there are a lot of people who just love “The Nightfly” – who don’t own any Steely Dan albums (and probably don’t know that Fagen is Steely Dan!). It is a more accessible record than any of the Steely Dan albums – and one never grows tired listening to it. In 2017 the “Fagen Band” toured and played, mostly, Steely Dan songs.

All of this leads to the rather strange phenomena of the SAME group releasing TWO live albums simultaneously this year – under two different names. From the steelydan.com website: “Steely Dan’s NORTHEAST CORRIDOR: STEELY DAN LIVE! and a live version of the acclaimed solo album by Donald Fagen – THE NIGHTFLY LIVE – will both be released on CD & Digital on September 24, 2021.”

The Steely Dan album contains a fairly predictable set of songs culled from various performances in the northeast – as some stage (presumably the autumn of 2019). It looks like a single CD – so not even a full performance – a bit like “Alive in America” from the mid 90s (not recommended). Considering that there are myriad live soundboard bootlegs of this band around, I would feel a bit short-changed by this offering. In fact, the cover is so bad that it could be mistaken for a bootleg (I’m sure I have a better photo on my phone from the last time I saw them live). I’ll buy it, of course.

Then there is “The Nightfly,” live. As far as I can make out, this must be from a single performance at the Ophreum theatre Boston in October 2019. Bizarrely, this was a “Steely Dan” concert. In fact, the Dan did a 5 night residency in 2019 during which time they performed “Aja” “The Royal Scam” “Gaucho” “The Nightfly” and then a Greatest Hits performance. All of this was professionally recorded (“Northeast Corridor”) – and Gosh – what an opportunity there was for a 10 CD “Steely Dan” live box set. Audience tapes of these concerts have been circulating for some time.

Nevertheless, the Nightfly part of the concert is being released on vinyl and CD – and of course I will buy it (having 5 or 6 other version/copies, plus SACD, DVD-A, CD and cassette).

I must confess that I am generally ambivalent about modern concert performances on vinyl. Most concerts these days are 2 to 2.5 hours long (perfect for 2 CDs) which means up to 4 slabs of plastic.

By their nature, concerts would appear to be the ideal scenario for all analogue recording – the soundboard (if it is analogue) could be plugged into a multi-track analogue recorder – but this happens approximately NEVER. Rather, the concert is multi-tracked straight into Pro Tools. And why not – most live albums are not “live”* – they are tweaked to within an inch of inauthenticity by producers and engineers after the fact. Frequently entire guitar or vocal passages are overdubbed.

As the concert is digitally recorded, there is much greater pleasure in listening to the album streamed in a lossless format or viewed on video (preferably UHD Blu-Ray) in 5.1 surround or better (there seems to be ever diminishing numbers of concert films released on video formats these days). Realistically, the “vinyl” concert album is a souvenir – something you are unlikely to listen to twice (Nick Mason at the Roundhouse, Roger Waters Wall Soundtrack etc).

Knowing and believing all of this I slapped down €60 on a pre-order for an 3 LP “live” album on which the band admitted to “many months of careful listening and mixing” – a euphemism for tweaking and overdubbing. Moreover, the said album can be streamed now in high resolution free on Qobuz – the vinyl won’t arrive for many months. So what is this magnificent artifact? It is the Tedeschi Trucks Band (TTB) plus Trey Anastasio performing “Layla and Assorted Love Songs” in its entirety at Lockn’. Do I need this album – absolutely not – it cannot possibly be as good as the original (but it is very good nonetheless), the stream is probably better than the CD and the vinyl – and they don’t seem to be releasing a video version (although there are professional clips available). My need for this record is likely related to that old psychology gem: the consistency principle. Moreover, I enjoy listening to the TTB – they are (arguably) the world’s foremost jam band – but I have never before felt compelled to buy one of their records. Releasing this album is an act of genius: once you have bought one album by TTB – you are much more likely to buy their next one. I bought Nick Cave’s “Kicking against the pricks” back in 1987 – it was a covers album that I loved, and ended up with all of his other records – and am still unsure how many of them I actually like. Likewise when Marcus Miller covered Miles Davis’ “Tutu” in 2011 – it introduced me to Christian Scott – whose music I have been enjoying for the past decade.

Suede are touring again next year – this time they are playing “Coming Up” – the album in full.

*A lot of concerts are not necessarily live either – pop acts are practically karaoke sessions (as in the Eurovision Song Contest) and rock concerts are frequently played over backing tracks with time coded visuals. Add this to the drunken dancing (always directly in front of you), the out of time clapping, the singalongers who can’t sing, the sticky floor from spilt soda, the relentless talking by the couple behind you, the limited view due to the staggering distance that you have to stand or sit from the stage – resulting in you effectively watching the concert on TV, the delay getting out of the parking lot and the astronomical cost of tickets – there’s a lot to be said for live-streaming the concert at home or watching the disc.

~ by Pat Neligan on July 29, 2021.

Posted in Uncategorized
Tags: classic albums live, donald fagen, Layla, live albums, live albums on vinyl, mojo magazine, northeast corridor, performed live, Pink Floyd, Roger Waters, steely dan, suede, tedeschi trucks band, the nightfly, uncut magazine