The Surging News reporter Qian Lianshui
The Guardian named the ten best live albums of all time. The closest is Beyoncé's 2018 Coachella Festival scene, and the farthest is a performance in Greenwich Village in 1962 when Nina Simon rose to fame. Several of them are from the golden 1970s, the 1990s Nirvana's New York Unplugged stand out throughout the decade, and the stupid punk and LCD Soundsystem electronics are the voices that herald the new millennium.
Daft Punk – Alive 2007 (2007)
Start with the stupid punk that just announced its dissolution. Once upon a time, their scene was a haven where strangers sweated together. The 2006-07 Alive tour lasted 19 months, and a brilliant transparent pyramid drew attention to the importance of technology in the music of the new century.
The spectacle of technological advances takes on a strange harmony at their large concerts. Through art installations and touch screens, Stupid Punk and the engineer team achieved tight synchronization. The 2006 Allive debuted at the Coachella Festival in the United States, and the opening moment of the curtain is as meaningful to electronic music as The Beatles appeared on the Ed Sullivan Show in 1964 for rock and roll. DJs are no longer DJs, but new age magicians. They transform themselves into the physical image of the future, creating tomorrow in the air from scratch.
In the end, they decided to abandon the release of live DVDs and instead the live album "Alive 2007", so that the vast scene that could not be recreated on the small screen remained in the memories of the live audience. Stupid punk has the confidence to remove the light, as long as the golden songs taken from the first three albums pour out, there is also the magic of making every cell active.
Johnny Cash – At Folsom Prison (1968)
Prior to this, Johnny Cash had begun regular touring the prison. It wasn't the first time he'd sung to the inmates at Folsom Prison, but it was his first attempt at recording the scene, looking for business opportunities from it.
The guys in the prison were cooperative, and Cash told them that it would be an album at the moment, and instead of shouting "Hell" or "Shit", they would cooperate obediently.
"At Folsom Prison" was better than "At San Quentin", which was recorded the following year. Recorded twice in the morning and noon, Cash went from nervous to gradually relaxed, with his signature mid-bass mixed with mischievousness and sadness. He sang "Cocaine Blues," "Send A Picture of Mother," "25 Minutes to Go," "Dark as a Dungeon, and the more universal "I Still Miss Someone," "Green, Green Grass of Home, about them, and the more universal". We heard the commotion, singing and laughter, and we could not imagine the tears that could not be heard.
3、妮娜·西蒙（Nina Simone）——《Nina at The Village Gate》（1962）
In the early 1960s, you sat in a dimly lit bar in Greenwich Village, ordered a dirty martini, and waited patiently for the talk show actor to say goodbye, and Nina Simon appeared. People around you are dressed up like characters from Queen's Gambit.
Nina Simon on stage is young and proud, just debuted. She plays the piano well, both a jazz girl born out of ancient times and a more fashionable folk singer, singing protest songs, swaying in the quiet light and shadow of the blues, and can't hide the rock spirit that will soon shine.
4、The Cramps——《Smell of Female》（1983）
In 1983, The Cramps, a pioneer of gorgeous garage rock, was still fresh. They performed two nights in a row at the Peppermint Lounge in Manhattan, as fresh as iced whiskey.
There is a certain freshness and crispness in the rhythm of the heart, as if the hot sweat is blowing in the faint cool air. The scene is often so wonderful.
5、涅槃（Nirvana）——《MTV Unplugged in New York》（1994）
By 1993, Nirvana was already one of the most reputable bands in the world. People see not only Kurt Cobain as a rock hero, but also as a handsome god under Mount Olympus, a prophet who has been troubled on earth.
At this point, Cobain wanted to peel off the aura. A month after the live album was recorded, he bought a black Lexus. Within a day, he had the car back. Cobain was at a loss. Before recording, he was concerned that the band would not be able to express subtle emotions without plugging in. He complained to the scene's curator, Amy Fenerty, that the audience certainly didn't like the show because they were too quiet. Amy told him that they had made you Jesus.
At the scene, Köppen lit a black candle and placed stargazing lilies. Later, people recalled this scene and felt much like a rehearsal of Cobain's funeral.
6、LCD Soundsystem:《The Long Goodbye: LCD Soundsystem Live at Madison Square Garden》（2014）
In 2011, the scene at THE MADISON Garden Plaza at LCD Soundsystem was supposed to be a farewell song. James Murphys and the band made the goodbye very long. If you buy a 187-minute live CD and need to change the discs five times, forcing you to stay focused and ritualistic.
In those 187 minutes, there were punk, rock, electronics, and discos. The middle-aged chubby uncle Morpheus is sometimes frustrated and sometimes energetic; sometimes gruff, sometimes gorgeous, and the final effect is as perfect as the pyramid scene of stupid punk. Thankfully, five years later, LCD Soundsystem is back.
7、汤斯·范·赞特（Townes Van Zandt）——《Live at The Old Quarter, Houston, Texas》（1977）
Steve Earle thinks Towns Van Zant is greater than Bob Dylan. He was just unlucky and not as strong as Dylan, dragged to the grave by alcohol and bipolar disorder, leaving little fame after his death.
Broken hearts soaked in alcohol are standard among country bards. Van Zant accepts the standard of grief and tries to transcend it, injecting humor, insight, flapping, and compassion into the song of a sober personality. Recorded in 1973 in a crowded tavern, the live album untied the studio with simple instrumentation and a space full of spectators, capturing Van Zent's comfortable state and turning his career around.
8、碧昂斯（Beyoncé）——《Homecoming: The Live Album》（2019）
In 2018, Beyoncé became the first black female artist to lead Coachella, with 458,000 people watching the live broadcast. In the month that followed, 43 million people watched the on YouTube.
In the California desert, beyoncé was accompanied by more than 200 artists, including brass bands, marching bands, drum bands, dancers and harmonies. No one on stage is doing exactly the same thing as others, and no one's beauty is consistent with others. It's a celebration of human diversity, not just black people.
The rich clues of black culture were woven into a two-hour live—jazz in New Orleans, Afrobeat in Nigeria(Note: a combination of Yoruba music, jazz, and funk rhythms, using percussion instruments and vocals), electronic dance music in the Caribbean, rhythms and rhythms in West Africa, trap in Atlanta, motown music, gospel songs, funk... Beyoncé plays a different image of a spiritual leader than the white queen Madonna. She manages to balance the prevailing beliefs of personal success with the black-minded sense of community, and tells others how individuals can be free and successful in harmonious groups.
9、The Band——《The Last Waltz》（1978）
On Thanksgiving Day 1976, The Band's curtain call came true, and the band disbanded permanently. Their longtime music fan Martin Scorsese recorded the entire process on camera, and two years later the live album was released, immortalized in another form.
At the farewell performance, young Bob Dylan, Neil Young, Van Morrison, Jonny Mitchell, Ronnie Hawkins, Neil Diamond, Eric Clapton, moody Waters all took the stage to perform the final song with the band.
The Band abruptly stops at the apex of the arc, leaving an eternal beauty in the hearts of fans. Their musical path is the same as that of many of their contemporaries, from the blues, souls, and country of the sixties to the rock and psychedelics of the seventies.
Jim Miller, a contributor to Rolling Stone magazine who watched their Cambridge scene in 1970, remembers that everyone present memorized The Band's song list, and each capital sang a chorus, and the scene was extremely harmonious and quiet. He thinks the band is at its peak, but it is very mature, polished too smoothly, and after grinding away uneven incisions and scars, the band has not much room to move forward. Miller shared the same view of the farewell album released in 1978: although the stars are bright, the best part is Bob Dylan. Not because he's the most famous, but because he's the most unpredictable, stirring the band out of new ways.
10 Neil Young and Crazy Horse – Live Rust (1979)
The Neil Young you want to hear is all here. The soundtrack of "Sugar" and "I am a Child" opens, "After the Gold Rush" follows, "Cinnamon Girl" and "Like a Hurricane" are plugged in, and Yang's unique voice and electric noise are mixed to say goodbye to it in that decade-old way.
Editor-in-Charge: Chen Shihuai
Proofreader: Ding Xiao