favorite live album?
 

favorite solo album - a year later?

there was a poll for your favorite solo album of LB's that was conducted (and closed now, otherwise i'd bump it!) for like 5 days after the album came out.

someone noted that now that SWS has simmered for a while, might be the time to re-evaluate and re-poll (although it seems OOTC always wins by a wide margin).

maybe i can throw in his live albums to change it up a bit? or i guess a separate poll for live albums?

so:

Law and Order
Go Insane
OOTC
UTS
GOS
SWS

Soundstage (i know it's only a DVD but i'll count it as live album)
Bass Performance Hall
Songs from the Small Machine
One Man Show

which is it? live or studio?

this first poll will be for live albums. which is your favorite of the 4 live releases LB had?

No contest, hands down One Man Show. Perfection. :nod:

:xoxo:

i can't quite decide between Small Machine and One Man Show... although on another board i voted for One Man Show. depends on the day for me.

It's the only one I've seen live so it's partially a sentimental favorite. I think if had been to a Small Machine show it would be a tougher choice. But OMS was beautiful, amazing, and brilliant. Really made me appreciate a lot of the songs much more than I ever did in their studio versions.

This list makes it depressing that we never got the GOS tour documented.
Even OOTC was recorded, although it was cut down for television.

Michele

was there ever official Center Stage DVD release? i'd love to have that, but i only have a really bad bootleg recording off the tv i'm guessing. youtube videos from that tour are much better quality.

Yep :distress: That definitely needs to be brought up if he does M&Gs again when he resumes OMS in 2014.

#4 BASS HALL

CAD is great, though even better on OMS!
I LOVE - It Was You
SUD is also great, though I like it WAY better the way he plays it on OMS Tour...faster, louder, more aggressive!
IKINW is okay.

The rest of it does nothing for me. Zzzzz.


#3 SOUNDSTAGE

Kind of a mixed bag for me...

LIKE - Someone's Gotta Change Your Mind
LOVE -Trouble
LOVE - Big Love
LOVE - Go Insane

Two songs I absolutely love, but not here:
Down On Rodeo
Peacekeeper

LOVE - Red Rover
LIKE - Never Going Back Again (better on LIB)
LIKE - Say Goodbye
LOVE - Murrow Turning Over in his Grave
DON"T LIKE - Go Your Own Way
LIKE - I Am Waiting

#2 OMS It would be perfect if you could hear an audience, though I understand why there isn't since it was recorded by Lindsey and a couple of his guys. His performance is beautiful, though <3 Really, really great, and it means so much to have an official recording from this tour. :xoxo:
Problem for me is on a live CD I like to hear the audience the way it actually sounded, so it feels like you're there. I miss the audience on this. That's my only complaint. Also, Stephanie and SUD are way better on the Fort Worth bootleg ( and of course, you can hear the crowd loud and clear too), but we're not counting bootlegs, so...

#1 SMALL MACHINE

Like redtulip with OMS, I'm partial to this one since I was there, and it was my first time seeing Lindsey live, solo. Plus it has songs from my favorite album, SWS :nod:

I skip Trouble and NGBA because they're both waaaayyyy to slow on that tour, but everything else is sublime. High energy all the way! In particular, UTS with three acoustic guitars was so cool :cool: IOOT, TTWTLG, POI, NGBA, and GYOW all are kick ass :blob2: ISA is stellar :blob1: SWS is so, SO beautiful :angel: Just an amazing live album.

Only Don't Look Down was officially released in one of those "best of" VH-1, VHS tapes.

The rest I only have taped from the tv too.

Michele

Soundstage for me. I think the DVD could've been more well-rounded if Buckingham had done another 2-3 songs (So Afraid for starters). I just like the ambiance of the show more than the others.

redtulip said it all!

OMS is just sublime :nod:

Love the other 3 options as well though!

And THIS! :xoxo:

Yes! "when" he resumes OMS in 2014!!!! :]

The OMS version of ISA blows my mind! I got goosebumps all 21 times I was there!!!!

wow, lots of love for Soundstage! :cool:

see, to me Soundstage is one of those recordings that could have been stellar, but is not.

the look and the setting is beautiful. also this being an album with the highest concentration of the songs from aborted GOS1, several of them unreleased at the point when Soundstage was recorded, makes me want to love it.

but that's why it is actually disappointing to me - because all those songs that i just LOVE are kinda done boringly on Soundstage - Rodeo and SYHA are completely ruined, Red Rover is good but not great, only BL, Go Insane, NGBA are great (neither of them are from GOS1). it feels like missed opportunity to me, every time i listen to it.

Murrow is the only spectacular one, much better than the SYW album version, and the whole disc is worth it just for that. (also if you are a SG live worshiper which many here apparently are :p )

on the other hand, if i just watch it - well. LB in one of his most beautiful phases (Soundstage plus LiB!), so for the eye candy aspect yeah. but that's not what we are weighing here, we are talking about the sound of his various live releases.

oh Peacekeeper is horrible too, he should have done that fast original version instead. and the only time i liked I Am Waiting was at 92Y.

great analysis!

for me, Bass and Soundstage share spots #3 and #4.

Small Machine beats the Soundstage and Bass hands down - performance is much livelier and the selection of songs is great. SWS songs on it are spectacular and SHN and Tusk versions are much much better than any recent versions of those 2 songs, whether mac or solo.

but i have a special love for OMS. songs he did alone on Small Machine are not nearly as good as on OMS. and So Afraid on OMS is to die for - like it was during every actual show i saw (and as Viv also said above!).

so it's between Small Machine and OMS for me. of course, too bad that Small Machine CD doesn't have Turn It On, and that OMS doesn't have Rodeo and RAB.

If we were talking DVD instead of audio I'd completely agree with you (Small Machine I love the audio, but not the video so much). The audience is totally into Lindsey, and he's all over the board, emotionally, throughout. It really makes me wish I had been there.

I forgot all about SYHA :shocked:I knew that list looked short...anyways, definitely a "love" for me. I agree with you re. Rodeo, but SYHA and, especially, Red Rover are really good on Soundstage.


Um, beautiful is an understatement ;) He's extremely easy on the eyes...okay, he's hot :xoxo: No argumant there!

The Soundstage version is my favorite. Stevie's there and those harmonies... 1000% makes it extra special - especially the Frozen Love nod.

Plus, DOR. Probably my fav version.

I think he was at a peak during this time. My second choice would be Live at Bass Performance Hall.

Overall, I've been disappointed with the OMS recording with the exception of having live version of "Stephanie" for the first time.

I picked Small Machine - Shut Us Down and So Afraid are absolutely amazing on this one!

That's such a hard decision though, especially because I cherish the OMS album so much since it was my first time seeing him live, solo :xoxo:

I swear, whether he can actually see into the audience at times, when you think he's looking right at you, it's like he's looking into my soul! It's unnerving in the best way possible ;) I had a moment like that when he was singing Come - honest, I looked away for a second, he's so intense!

That's so funny, because I do look away sometimes too and it's silly because cerebrally I know he can't see my eyes, but it feels like eye contact and it makes me feel a little weird.

That reminds me of one time my mother told me when she is playing Wheel of Fortune on the computer and she know the answer she tries not to look at the other contestants (computer generated people), because she doesn't want them go guess what she's thinking.

Michele

I'm glad I'm not insane for doing that then, well...heh at least I'm not alone in that feeling :)

Hehe that's adorable about your mom :D Hey, it very well might help her!

What about the recording disappointed you?

I made myself listen to the entire thing yesterday so I could give you an accurate description for my disappointment.

Here are the basic things that stand out:

• His age is more evident in his voice in this recording and sounds thin a lot.

• The whoops & hollers from the audience bug me. (And rarely does that bother me in live recordings but it does here.) At one point the track cuts off the hollering abruptly which was jarring. Poor editing on someone's part. Needed to fade out/into next track better.

• The backing tracks stand out a little too much making it annoying as heck to listen to. (Particularly strange/distracting are his own harmonies on GYOW. WTH - don't do that! LOL. & the clicking/clapping on ISA. Hate it.

• BTLH is a HOT MESS. He is slightly behind himself and it totally ruins this song for me. It's like his fingers are tired and the tone of the melody on the bass strings - it's either slightly out of tune or I don't like the tone of the guitar he is using. Also, his screeching at the end is grating - sounds like he's gonna cough up a loogie. I love this song - both of the other versions and wish he had just left it out of the set now.

• SUD, another one of my favorites, felt rushed and detached. It lacked the emotion he gave it during the GOS tour and that was what really drew me into the song. This just felt like he was trying to get it over with.

• Missed the "Southern" speech/BN reference. I know this wasn't recorded in the South, but maybe it should have been.

• Overall, I miss production or better editing/mixing and it showcases more "flubs" than I want to admit Lindsey has in his playing. It's a little sloppy.

And, to soften the blow I'll list the things I appreciate:

• Stephanie live

• The new twist on ISA solo

• Having the intro to NGBA which is just sweet

• One of the best versions of NTL which is not usually one I enjoy

• Also, I enjoyed this version of Come probably more than others, the backing track on this actually works nicely, meshes into his live playing better

• His delivery of "you know you should never believe what you read" with the little chuckle in NTL. One of his best stage performances.

So, this live recording was an epic fail for me. I much more enjoyed being at the shows I was able to attend in person.

^ nice analysis, really interesting to read what different people like and dislike. :nod:

see to me your pros alone would be worth having this recording. :thumbsup:

btw NGBA intro is also available on Small Machine so having that on OMS is not unique. same with availability of different released versions of live SUD.

i love love love this ISA, backing track and all - loved it at every show, loved it at every bootleg, love it on OMS :]. but tastes are different.

i'd much rather he puts out slightly imperfect recordings than having him tinker with stuff for 10 years like he did in the past, so to me choice there is no brainer. remember, he released this basically while on tour, within a month of it being performed and recorded. i love lindsey being fast with his releases and will never ever complain against that. :thumbsup:

i do agree with you about some unnecessary editing - seems that he re-recorded some parts of his spoken intros - there's no audience noise and also people who were at that show tell me that he was saying different stuff than what's on recording. so that's annoying, i'd rather have it with all the audience hollering and screaming (which you would like even less :D).

for me his fuller and mature voice as is now is a plus on his live recordings, but that's up to everybody's taste. i don't think he should stop recording live stuff because someone might not like his current voice ;). but then again i can't stand his thin young voice and some people seem to have loved it (i don't remember whether you do or not, CAD).

what i think is a serious flaw of OMS release is no availability of Rodeo that he also did in Des Moines. i would love to have that (although he probably didn't think it was good enough so that would make you dislike OMS even more! ;) ).

and he should have added RAB recording from one of the shows. i just listened to the Ft Worth bootleg in my car, and i had to put it on once again... it made me cry. especially when i know i won't have a chance to hear it live again for a long long time, if ever.:distress:


can you also analyze Soundstage like this? b/c i almost feel about Soundstage like you do about OMS - while i think on OMS most of his songs and versions are better than they were in the past (see my comparison of acoustic parts of SM vs OMS), i think Soundstage versions (again, see my analysis somewhere above) didn't do justice to most of his great GOS1 songs, and made them sound much worse.

I appreciate that you took the time to re-listen to the album.

I find that his voice has gotten better with age, and I don't really think it sounds much different than it did on Soundstage, which you said was your favorite.

It is a live album, so you have to expect that you will hear the audience. I do agree there was one point where the audience was cut off abruptly, I think it was the transition to GYOW, but in the grand scheme of the album, I don't find it that big of a deal.

I do agree you hear the backing track to GYOW more on the album than you did at the show, but I don't find the backing tracks distracting at all. In fact, the backing track for ISA is one of my favorite parts of the song. I love this version of ISA so much, and this song has never been a favorite of mine. I'm actually dreading it on the upcoming FM tour because I don't think it will ever sound as good with the band as it does on OMS.

I can't agree with any of this. The OMS BTLH is head and shoulders above all the other versions to me. I love how it's sped up and I think that his voice really conveys a lot more emotion in the OMS version than it does in any other version. This is easily one of my favorite songs on OMS. I don't hear any screeching or think he sounds out of tune. Being the perfectionist he is, if it was out of tune at all he would have fixed it or not released it.

I hear plenty of emotion.

I'm not sure why you think the "Southern" speech would/should be included. He only did it at shows in the south, not on the majority of the dates. I think even if he had used one of the shows recorded in the south, he would still have edited this out. This seems like a really random mark against the album and I don't get why it's an issue.

I don't hear these flubs. And I think the sound and production are pretty good, especially when you consider how quickly he was able to put this out.


This really doesn't make sense to me because I was at 10 shows, and they all sounded remarkably like the OMS album (but, I was also at the Des Moines show the album was recorded at). Obviously there are some differences between shows, but since they are all very similar, I would think if you enjoyed the live show you would enjoy the live album as well.

I would be interested to hear your analysis of Soundstage as well.

Some of my opinion of the audio of OMS may be based on desk speakers I am listening through. I'll have to try it in my car or home stereo to see if the sound quality changes.

You asked me why I felt it was a disappointment to me and I gave you the details. It's not important enough to me to debate with you on it.

I do want to point out that as a singer and a guitarist, I do hear the flubs and when something is out of tune. There is one song - can't remember which one - where it was so obvious I cringed. And, I think Lindsey has gotten a little more lax in his "perfectionism" in his senior years, especially when it comes to his solo work.

I don't think it's worth my time just to have you debate every point with me. I appreciate Elle's attempt to converse on it though.

Elle, I would like to throw this out there from your comments -- I think what you call Lindsey's "thin" voice in his younger days is actually his higher register. As a person ages, their voice tends to "thin" in singing. It's inevitable -- it's rare that an older person can maintain a true fullness in their voice in their 60's+. That's not to say that Lindsey isn't able to have moments where his voice is full -- he does. And, I think probably even more now -- my guess is that he has used techniques he picked up from vocal coaching that they didn't really have as much in the old days, much like Stevie has done. But, there are still a lot more instances now (that are just purely due to his age) where his voice gets thin. It's not horrible, I just hear it and when I listen to young Lindsey back to back with now Lindsey -- it's obvious.

I actually really like his voice now. I like that it's a bit rougher and definitely deeper. However, I actually think he still sounds more like he did say 10 years ago than Stevie does unfortunately. I'm not saying she doesn't sound good, but it seems like Lindsey has a bit more range than she does as of right now.

I definitely think that Lindsey's younger voice was more flexible, limber and that he could move up and down the scale while still holding the key rather effortlessly. I appreciated the gymnastic talent he had then (just as I appreciated Stevie's vocal athleticism circa Wild Heart) and I did love his higher voice, although I enjoy the way he sounds today and think it such an improvement over the SYW era that I'm thrilled and impressed whenever I hear him and remember back.

Your comments make me wonder how Chris would have been live. Her voice sounded deeper and rich on Meantime, but there were signs of . . .you know how you can hear an old tree bend in the wind . . . well you could sense that in her sound, just a tiny creak, which added emotion to the record, but I wonder how that would stand up on tour.

Lindsey is great on tour because even though he sings (often screams) fearlessly and you think he's going to have to pay for it eventually, he doesn't. I don't know the difference between singing from your diaphragm or singing from your navel, but even though he might be using more disciplined vocal techniques in the old days than he used to, and they pay off endurance wise, I don't sense that they restrain him. Whereas, I do think Stevie restrains herself.

As far as him being less meticulous in his later years, this last year has disappointed me. I'd love to see him tour without a band again, but I hope he ditches both ISA and (sacrilege!) GYOW. I really loved the ISA vocals and actually found them a refreshing take which made me rethink the song's meaning all over again, but musically, after 33 years of live shows, solo and FM, I've never seen the latter, instrumental part of the song fail to peak the way it did this last tour and the same thing with GYOW. With ISA, Lindsey even physically (not just musically) seemed less dynamic to me. So, going forward, if he's alone again, I hope he's not afraid to drop those songs or rework them drastically.

I'm glad to have the OMS. I want every single tour documented and I mourn Gift of Screws, because I think the performance of the title track alone, short as it was, was worth the price of admission to those shows. I want a DVD of that. So, I'm very grateful to have OMS and I'm glad he was on the road anyway, rather than being at home and out of the public eye, but it was my least favorite tour and listening to it reminds me why.

Michele

I wouldn't doubt Lindsey has more of a range than Stevie now -- but not more of a range than he used to have. He's even admitted that - again that's just aging. :)

I think it's more of a singing from your throat. At least with me, that's what coaches always had to work on getting me not to do. It's hard - especially when you're singing out - but that's when you strain those vocal chords the worst, I believe. Probably that's what happened with Stevie in the younger days - she screamed too much and just stripped 'em. Plus, trying to sing over blaring guitars... it's all your fault Linds! ;)

Wow - I don't think his voice is better than SYW - but I didn't get to see any live shows. I really think he was at his peak - both vocally & musically during the SYW/UTS/GOS years.

Interesting note about Christine. I've wondered if she's still got the chops. Honestly, if she hasn't continued singing at home, she may not have been able to tour recently even if she had wanted to. I hate it that the glory days are over.

You know, I really did enjoy ISA live - even this version with the clicking. It's always been a real showcase piece I think, but there are so many other versions of it that are just stellar, this one fails to represent and it is probably the absence of the full band - I think this one sounds best with FM.

I'm definitely glad to have OMS for documentation sake and the points I listed earlier. It's just not my favorite. And, I totally agree with you - I hate that GOS was not recorded live - it was the first solo show I saw and I really enjoyed that album and that period of time in his career.

Yeah, I was kidding about the navel.

I think ISA is worlds better with a band, even his solo band, not just FM. I want him to tour without a band going forward, if that is the best thing to do, but I want him to really pick songs that are best suited for that. ISA sounded and GYOW both sounded fine on this tour, but I've seen them performed so much better.

I can't really pick which tour I liked best -- aside from this most recent one being last in my ranking. From a pure setlist perspective, I liked the GOS songs best and I liked the UTS songs least. BUT when the UTS tour happened, I didn't have SWS or GOS to compare it to and I thought the UTS tour was spectacular at the time. Only in retrospect can I say that I liked the next two more. Judging each from the contemporaneous pleasure I got out of them then, then I guess they were equal.

Michele

Duh. :D



I think as much as I loved certain aspects about the tour, when we first heard rumblings about it, we thought it would be all-acoustic and that he would be giving us new arrangements of the rockers, translating them acoustically. I think that would have not only worked better in the OMS setting, but I also think it was part of the let-down for me.

this analysis of his peaking and movement on stage and how same songs sound or feel physically and your later post about different tours just gave me great idea for [yet] another poll - comparison of various solo tours and picking the favorite. :D

while i can't decide between Small Machine and OMS release, i can easily decide which tour of the 2 i saw i liked better.

re movement on the stage and how that affected songs, while ISA i thought was spectacular during OMS tour every single time, GYOW was completely hit or miss, depending on LB's movement and audience participation (i'm talking about the last 3 legs, b/c during the first leg seemed like he was still getting used to be alone up there so he was not moving from side to side of the stage for audience participation like he did during later 3 tour legs).

I think he is still a perfectionist - however, this might not appear as obvious because he is happy, relaxed, letting himself go and having fun, and generally having a blast without any stress or irritation to contend with! ;):D

He better not drop or rework ISA - this OMS version was best EVER! :nod::D:D

he should have recorded every show and released it after to the people who were at that show like several bands have been doing. that would solve people having regrets of not having versions, speeches and requests from the shows they were at (like your regretting about not having southern love speech).

I recorded the southern love speech from Atlanta 2012 if that's the one... I thought someone else had put it up though. If not I can dig it up and share.

does seem so, doesn't it? i was thinking of that while reading that interview from 2003 that Michele posted about him saying how he's living much more normal and relaxed life now, and actually making friends instead of just having girlfriends - or something like that. it was a bizarre statement to make, and i'm not sure what he really meant by it.

someone did put it up because i remember hearing a version of it but it was not from Atlanta i think. please do share! :thumbsup: