RUSH Exit Stage Left -- overdubbed?

I think it'd be a worthwhile adventure to list the rock live albums that weren't overdubbed.  There sure aren't too many.

I'd start with the Yes, Genesis, and ELP live albums from the 70s.  They were excellent musicians, so chances are they could deliver the goods every night.

Let's face it, the reason why most rock live albums are overdubbed is because the famous bands usually don't have the strongest musicians.  They're unreliable from night to night, especially if they were on a diet of chicks and blow.  They had the creative genius that allowed them to create work that would be cherished for generations, and the rare magical combination of the right 4 or 5 guys was a force to be reckoned with - but their actual abilities as musicians are a whole different thing.  For example, Fool's Overture is a brilliant piece of music by Supertramp, but in just about every live version of that song I've heard, the keyboardist makes mistakes in the main organ theme.

The best musicians played with guys like Jean-Luc Ponty, Al DiMeola, Zappa, and Bowie.  You can bet your life that guys like Daryl Stuermer and Adrian Belew have played not more than a few wrong notes in their lives, and that not a single note on records they've played on required any patchwork.  Guys like Tommy Emmanuel and Chet Atkins play/played music that's 10x harder to play than virtually all existing rock music, and never do/did they miss a note.

[QUOTE][QUOTENAME] Holly2003 wrote: [/QUOTENAME]

Thin Lizzy's 'Live and Dangerous' is supposed to be enhanced in the studio. However, I downloaded a bootleg of one of their shows, and The Cowboy Song is identical to the officially released version. [/QUOTE]

This is directly from Tony Visconti's website regarding Live And Dangerous

"We listened and listened and listened -- to at least 30 hours of tape recorded during many gigs, from Toronto to Philadelphia to London! We definitely had something, but the task of choosing the right takes was awesome. When we did, Phil asked if he could touch up some vocals. No harm in that -- this is commonly done for live albums because of technical faults, like microphone wire buzz and other gremlins. The trick to getting a studio vocal to sound like a convincing live vocal is to sing the song in the same way. Otherwise the live voice will poke through if the new voice is not in sync.

We spent a few days re-recording a few vocals. It went very well. Once we established a sound and a system to do this, Phil suggested that we might as well redo all the vocals. So we did. Then we noticed that Gorham and Robertson were not on mic for backing vocals half the time. If you listen closely you can hear Phil doubling the backing vocals at the same time he was singing lead! Then Phil realized that he'd missed a few notes on the bass when he was singing live. Could we replace some bass parts? "Of course!" I said. We did. The bass was harder and more precise and so ALL the bass parts were replaced. In walked Scott Gorham and Brian Robertson. Since it was so easy to replace Phil's parts, could they redo theirs? "Of course!" But now it was obvious that this was not completely live anymore. The guitars, bass and vocals were replaced -- just Downey's drums and the audience reaction were left! Fortunately Downey liked his playing and we kept ALL the drums.

I've gone on record before saying this album was 75% recorded in the studio, so I hope I haven't shattered any illusions. Still, the album went platinum, reaching #2 on the British charts, and it deserved it. Every track was performed before a live audience with the exception of "Southbound". There weren't any good takes of the song recorded in concert, so we used the recording made during the sound check onstage in Philadelphia and dubbed in the intro and outro audience reaction from that night's show.

Because the original recordings lacked certain details I had to resort to some trickery when Phil asked for audience participation. For instance, on the breakdown of "Rosalie" Phil asks the audience to "put yer hands together". I boosted up the audience tracks and there was a wildly enthusiastic audience clapping like mad, but the band was far louder. I couldn't use those tracks because the band would've sounded too echoey, picked up by the high audience mics. So I made a 20-second loop of the audience clapping for an encore. I put the loop through electronic gates that were triggered by a note from a keyboard. The loop was silent until I played a note on the keyboard. So when I played quarter notes (crotchets) it sounded like the audience was clapping along. Remember, they'd been clapping along that night but the mics just didn't pick them up loud enough. Also, at the end of this track the tape ran out and I had to edit in the audience reaction from the end of another song. That's why it literally sounds like a burst of applause at the end.
Despite the necessary trickery this album is very real. It represents electrifying moments before an audience and fabulous second chances to get it right in the studio."

http://www.tonyvisconti.com/artists/thinlizzy.shtml

@Mr Mercury -- thanks for that. However, I'm still trying to reconcile what I've been told about the album with the Philadelphia bootleg, which has almost identical music.

Holly2003 wrote: Rick wrote: Live Killers from a band called Queen (ever heard of them?)

Damn, they sounded so tight in those days. Wish I could have seen them :( --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I love that album but it's definitely had some work done to it.
You did spot the sarcasm, I hope? ;-)

[QUOTE][QUOTENAME]Sir GH wrote:[/QUOTENAME] What would interest me is a list of live albums that weren't overdubbed.

I'll start it:

1) James Brown - Live At The Apollo

Or was it? [/QUOTE]

2) Queen - Live Magic
I've been surprised that they haven't overdub this one, especially when you think how many times Freddie's voice cracked during the Knebworth concert

Sir GH wrote: I think it'd be a worthwhile adventure to list the rock live albums that weren't overdubbed.  There sure aren't too many.

I'd start with the Yes, Genesis, and ELP live albums from the 70s.  They were excellent musicians, so chances are they could deliver the goods every night.
If you listen to the Archive 1 box by Genesis, there's the entire Lamb Lies Down On Broadway, live. And they re-recorded most of Peters lead vocals somewhere in the 1990's.

Ooh yes, that's true.  I've heard the uncut 1-24-75 show and I don't know what they were complaining about.  There's a charm in imperfection.

FriedChicken wrote: Sir GH wrote: I think it'd be a worthwhile adventure to list the rock live albums that weren't overdubbed.  There sure aren't too many.

I'd start with the Yes, Genesis, and ELP live albums from the 70s.  They were excellent musicians, so chances are they could deliver the goods every night.
If you listen to the Archive 1 box by Genesis, there's the entire Lamb Lies Down On Broadway, live. And they re-recorded most of Peters lead vocals somewhere in the 1990's.
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Doing overdubs doesn't necessarily have to do with fixing performance mistakes. 
There may have been an instrument that went out of tune, a part of the song that
wasn't picked up by the mics properly, or monitor feedback.

Professionally released live lps where all fixed in the studio.   The artist would
never want to release some glaring mistake on one of their lps.

A live performance is never going to be 100% perfect.

The reason for recording Peter Gabriels voice was that the original vocals were muffled because of the costumes he was wearing (Most notably the Slippermen costume)