Best official live album?

[jbrownsjr]

Live In Boston isn't doing so well...

[StandbackStevie]

I love them all hard choice and I voted for The Live Double Album 1980 from the Tusk Tour i do love the dance too and Live in Boston too I was at the taping of the Live in Boston so it holds a sentimental thing for being at a live recorded show and too that night first time for me to shake hands with Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham that night it was a special night to have it been recorded and released a cd/dvd is awesome and loved the say you will tour amazing. good poll.

[moon]

Well, I choose "The Dance". I think "Live 1980" could be the best...if it had "Tusk" and "The Chain" !!!!!!!
Regards

[MacFan92]

I gotta go with The Dance. Mostly because I prefer an entire live show, as opposed to the selected tracks featured on the 1980 Live album. Live In Boston is too short for me, and more importantly, it lacks Christine McVie.

[PenguinHead]

Originally Posted by trackaghost

The 1980 Live album. It captures the band at their peak imo. The version of Rhiannon alone is better than the entire Dance album. Plus, Over And Over, the sublime Sara, Fireflies, Don't Let Me Down Again, Not That Funny, Oh Well, The Farmer's Daughter, One More Night, the string breaking at the end of Don't Stop... pure rock and roll.

Same for me. The Dance is great because the songs are rendered so polished. But LIVE is more pure, rough and honest, with little to no support musicians -- just the five firelies.

Though I would have preferred a full concert performance, they took a less tradtional route. It's a selection of different performances - a few from the Rumours tour, a few from the Tusk tour. Oh Well and Don't Let Me Down Again are standout tracks, and the live/studio-tweaked songs. Firelies, The Farmer's Daughter, and One More Night are nice rarities.

Wish they could expand this into a box set!

[PenguinHead]

Originally Posted by jbrownsjr

Live In Boston isn't doing so well...

They should have included the entire show on CD.

[Neal]

The 1980 Live album, but just barely.

It had so much potential but they chose to make it uneven and weird by adding soundcheck performances and overloading it with Rumours songs; a bad habit that seeps into everything they do, even to this day!

[jbrownsjr]

Originally Posted by PenguinHead

They should have included the entire show on CD.

You're probably right, plus Live in Boston has the BTM factor of not having the fab 5. If BTM had a live album it would not be doing well either I suppose.

[jbrownsjr]

Originally Posted by Neal

The 1980 Live album, but just barely.

It had so much potential but they chose to make it uneven and weird by adding soundcheck performances and overloading it with Rumours songs; a bad habit that seeps into everything they do, even to this day!

Overloaded? These songs don't appear on Live: Second Hand News, I Don't Wanna Know, You Make Lovin Fun, The Chain, Silver Springs (Bside), Songbird, Oh Daddy

[bangdrum]

Originally Posted by jbrownsjr

Overloaded? These songs don't appear on Live: Second Hand News, I Don't Wanna Know, You Make Lovin Fun, The Chain, Silver Springs (Bside), Songbird, Oh Daddy

No Gold Dust Woman either.

Originally Posted by PenguinHead

Music is released primarily to be heard. The 1980 Live album was released in a time long before DVDs and MTV videos. The songs all come from different shows. Unlike The Dance, there is no concise "video footage" to correspond with the Live album. It's a great "audio" document without any need for visuals. The sound should be enough satisfaction by itself!

ah, but there IS some video footage we have seen. We have all seen Dreams, Don't Stop, Sara, Monday Morning, and portions of Not That Funny and GYOW from that 20/20 special.

If you take into consideration that Oh Well was from St Louis as Sara was (or everything except most of Stevie's vocals and the backup vocals), they filmed it as they filmed the entire concert. We just haven't seen that clip of Oh Well. Also, a film crew videoed the Cleveland 1980 show as shown on the 20/20 special since we've got portions of The Chain all the way through Songbird. That concert exists in full somewhere in ABC's vaults or wherever. They didn't just film a minute or two of each song. They had a full camera crew there. So, we could technically add GYOW, NTF, and So Afraid as having video. THAT show would be great to see. Such energy by that point in the tour although I am still a fan of the St Louis concert.

That's practically 1/2 the Live album that there is video of. As for the remaining tracks, it wouldn't shock me if there was video for all of it. Seems likely since what I just mentioned. Plus, what about that recent unearthed treasure from 1977 Australia that guy has been posting on youtube?

[SteveMacD]

They all have fatal flaws, but the 1980 live album was the best if only because the relative lack of extra musicians.

LIB is a disaster. It's so similar to "The Dance" that it's somewhat pointless. It COULD'VE been good had they gone with songs not on "The Dance" and that were different in arrangement from the 1980 album.

[WildHearted]

I love The Dance, but I went with Live. It's got two of my favorite versions of Landslide and Rhiannon on it, and also, Fireflies and Sara...

[michelej1]

Originally Posted by SteveMacD

LIB is a disaster. It's so similar to "The Dance" that it's somewhat pointless. It COULD'VE been good had they gone with songs not on "The Dance" and that were different in arrangement from the 1980 album.

For me, the Dance was definitely better and if I could only have one, that would be it. But I think it was important to chronicle the FM line up without Christine and that LIB's existence is justified for that reason alone.

Michele

[KarmaContestant]

Originally Posted by louielouie2000

I chose Live '80... it's a snapshot in time. These newer live albums are just trying to recapture what was really going on when Live '80 was recorded.

This was true when you posted it two years ago, and it's still true. The Dance is mediocre at best with a few gems, and Live In Boston isn't even listenable in my opinion. But Live 1980 - that's what a live album should be like. Every track is flawless and does an excellent job of capturing what a Fleetwood Mac concert feels like.