Is music better on the album or live ?

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Imo, on the album. However, that is skewed since whenever I've been to watch live music it's never been a great experience. Muddy fields, broken toilets and lots of people smoking if it's outside (not good at all for my asthma).

Plus all the obnoxious screaming! I went to this place to listen to the bands, not you! What are you even screaming about? Can you even hear the band over your own screams? Calm down. Also I rather hate the hyping up the crowd part. I don't want to pretend to be hyped.

It's also disappointing when you go to see a show and you're hoping for certain songs to be played, but they aren't and instead they do bad covers or something. Come on, I was looking forward to that guitar solo and you throw a generic cover in there instead?

Plus you can't control the volume. So if it's overwhelmingly loud but you paid to get in, well that's not great. I went to a show like that once. The music was almost tolerable from the toilets.

For recorded music I usually prefer studio, over live recordings.

A lot of live recordings like the ones on YT or even studio-made live recordings, aren't as tight.
Voices are off, energy is off, etc.

I like LIVE live, meaning I'm actually there. I've seen many big-name artists live. Mostly everyone you can think of. Depending on the venue, the acoustics can be amazing (e.g., The Danforth), or terrible (Rogers Centre). The energy is palpable whether their sound is great or not. You can feel the sound waves hit you, like when I saw Ozzy. The sound actually hit my chest and pushed me backward. In live shows I also love the energy of the crowd, the lighting, and all the showmanship or rapport / talking from the band.

Best live act hands-down, was Van Halen with DLR. I saw them about five or six times.

Elton is also amazing live. One sip of water in a 2.5 hour show. Doesn't miss a single note, singing or fast piano.
His live recordings and YT videos are awful, even when they're studio made.
The sound is terrible. I don't understand the disconnect because I've seen him about six times as well.


Most disappointing live: Bruce Springsteen even with the E-Street Band and Clarence Clemons.
It totally sucked.

I also saw AC/DC in Rogers Centre and forgot I was there while it was happening.
Rogers is so big with such poor acoustics I felt like I was dissociated or watching them on TV.


Oh, almost forgot to say, I won't go to live shows outdoors. They always blow. There's my agoraphobia, the distractions of "real life" happening besides the show (airplanes, cars, background visuals), people moving around and talking, and sensory issues like sunshine, rain, wind, etc. YUCK - I won't do it.

I had the chance to see The Cure this summer but it was outdoors so I said no.

Really? Even 17-11-70? That's one of my favorite live albums ever, though the "remaster" added a little too much reverb (and flipped the stereo channels for some reason).

I like Here and There a lot too, especially the expanded two-disc version. IIRC it was one of John Lennon's final stage performances.

Have you seen Elton live?

in 1982 i went to seattle's central tavern [aka "seattle's only 2nd class tavern"] and saw charlie musselwhite and his combo, they had refrigerator-sized speakers that were so daggone loud it made the liquid in my drink slosh wish the bass notes that just blew though me. i couldn't hear right for hours afterwards. oughta be a law. anyways, aside from the ambience of the place, that could not be distinguishable from a recording studio performance live-to-2-track. for the sake of my bleeding ears it should have been, at least i could have turned down the volume that way.

I'm used to the popular 1960s, 1970s, and early 1980s music on albums - as recorded in audio studios.

I've listened to live concert recordings, and drew comparisons to studio recorded albums - yet the audio studio recorded versions were judged best.

I've never attended a concert - hence I became used-to audio studio recordings played on the radio over the years.

Not all recorded music is intended to be a faithful recreation of a live performance. This was arguably the Beatles' greatest legacy as they were the first artists to realize the creative potential of the studio by discarding the assumption that everything on a record has to be playable live.

In this way, records and live performances can be thought of as two different art forms. Some music is greatly enhanced by the creative and technical advantages that the studio offers. On the other hand, nothing can really replicate the emotional impact a great singer can have on a live audience.