Live 1980 Album - Retracked

[David]

Originally Posted by PenguinHead

There different approaches to Live albums. It could be one entire performance, or selected performances from various shows.

The band (or its label) went back and forth about what to release. The earlier intention—advertised in Patrick Goldstein's Pop Eye column in the L.A. Times—was to record the then-upcoming Hollywood Bowl concerts for a live album. But minds must have changed. The last Bowl show was Sept. 1 and the album was released Dec. 8, so the group must have recorded the show still believing it was going to be for the album. I think the final live album was a rush job—the time frame of no more than two months lends credence to that. I have the impression of Mick, Lindsey, and Christine (Stevie was in South America learning to stand on her own) sitting in a studio while some other cats play them various cuts of their own concerts from 1975 to 1980, and just randomly picking what sounded good (or odd) to them. There's such a mishmash of different years on the album, I'd bet things weren't even labeled well. And then, of course, there's cocaine. I think if anyone involved was doing any thinking about this whatsoever, it was Lindsey, and he probably wanted to make a second Tusk statement—idiosyncrasy, explosive energy, incoherence, etc. LIVE is a postmodern live album avant la lettre.