Reed opens the proceedings by describing “I’m Waiting for the Man” as “a tender folk song from the early ‘50s about love between man and subway.” Live At Max’s Kansas City also marked the first release of the original “Sweet Jane” bridge that had been edited out of the release of Loaded. It’s a polished set with some fairly uptempo renditions of VU’s avant-rock classics, with Yule’s brother Billy sitting in on drums for a pregnant Moe Tucker. The band still owed Atlantic Records another album on their contract after releasing Loaded, and instead of keeping the Doug Yule-led group on for their next studio album, the notorious Squeeze (which doesn’t include Reed, is hated by many fans and not considered a true VU album by others), the label opted to release a recording of the last VU show with Reed. In the summer of 1970, The Velvet Underground recorded Loaded and played a legendary nine-week residency at Max’s Kansas City in New York, with Lou Reed quitting the band before the final show. The Velvet Underground – Live At Max’s Kansas City (1972) There’s no shortage of live albums in the last few decades, but they never mattered quite as much as they did in the ‘70s.ĥ0.
This list only features albums recorded and released during the 1970s – which is to say the various live albums recorded at Woodstock and released in the ‘70s aren’t included, nor are more recent releases that feature archival recordings from the ‘70s. With the 50 th anniversary of a landmark live album, The Allman Brothers Band At Fillmore East, coming up on July 6, here’s a look back at the best of the best of the decade of decadence. The Grateful Dead released several official live albums (and continue to do so) that only made fans want to bootleg shows on their own more.
Jimi Hendrix, Neil Young (as his ongoing archive series shows), and Jackson Browne recorded entire sets of new songs onstage. The Band, The Stooges, and Velvet Underground put their final gigs on vinyl. Once obscure regional acts like Bob Seger, KISS and Cheap Trick exploded into the mainstream with live albums. Live albums captured legendarily loud bands like The Who and The Ramones in their natural element. The concert industry exploded in the 1970s, and the live album, a stopgap project once reserved for only the biggest artists, became a compulsory ritual and a pivotal moment for many artists.