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live songs you prefer to the studio version...


paul carruthers

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I Can't Quit You Babe

Whole Lotta Love

Thank You

Immigrant Song

Celebration Day

Since I've Been Loving You

Stairway To Heaven

Over The Hills And Far Away

No Quarter

The Ocean

Trampled Underfoot

For Your Life

...and there are many I like equally like The Rain Song, In My Time Of Dying, That's The Way, WIASNB, & many more while others I feel are vastly inferior like Kashmir, Misty Mountain Hop, In The Evening, Dazed And Confused, Battle Of Evermore. It also depends on the year too. I like early Communication Breakdown's but after 1970 I don't want to know. And before I get flamed over Dazed... what can I say, I'm not interested in a half hour's worth of noodling no matter who's doing it.

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+1 ABSOLUTELY! That's why I will always take a 75 or 77 Kashmir over 79 or 80.

The 77 versions did seem like the most guitar dominated aswell to me which pushed the song further away from the studio take and made it more interesting in its own right.

One problem with this question is I spose exactly what do you mean by "better live"? is it the best live version vs the studio take or the average performance? I tried to weigh my list somewhat between the two but if I picked the former I spose I might have gone with more live versions as superior.

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The 77 versions did seem like the most guitar dominated aswell to me which pushed the song further away from the studio take and made it more interesting in its own right.

One problem with this question is I spose exactly what do you mean by "better live"? is it the best live version vs the studio take or the average performance? I tried to weigh my list somewhat between the two but if I picked the former I spose I might have gone with more live versions as superior.

Another problem...well, problem may be too harsh a word...but another factor that informs my answer is that I'm also using my experience of seeing Led Zeppelin live in making my list.

Physical Graffiti had been out for only a week or so when the 1975 tour made its way to Southern California, but Kashmir had already made an immediate impression on me as one of the highlights of the album...an instant classic, in today's parlance.

Other IC's to me were The Rover, Ten Years Gone, IMTOD, and The Wanton Song...I was hoping to hear these songs and more at those '75 shows!

Anyway, as great as I already thought Kashmir was just from a couple week's playing the album non-stop, my young teen-age mind wasn't prepared for the atomic-sized wallop the song hit you with in concert. It was seismic, cosmic, epic...any "ic" you want to call it.

Ask Badgeholder and The Rover...they can back me up. Hearing Kashmir in concert left dinosaur-sized footprints on your mind.

I experienced a total of nine Kashmirs in concert from 75 and 77, and I'd still take the worst performance of those 9 over the album version, as great as it is.

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Best Live :

Since Ive Been Loving You

No Quarter

Dazed and Confused

Immigrant Song

Song Remains The Same

Moby Dick

Thank You

Studio:

Stairway To Heaven

Babe Im Gonna Leave you

Kashmir

Dancing Days

What Is and Should Never Be

Ten Years Gone

Rock and Roll

Battle of Evermore

Black Dog

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  • 2 weeks later...

My list of things better live: Whole Lotta Love(fav 9/24/71, though I always have liked the '79 versions), Heartbreaker(6/29/80), Bring It On Home, White Summer/Black Mountainside, Kashmir(I'll take a '77 version of this song any day), Moby Dick/Over the Top, How Many More Times, Dazed and Confused(fav 3/27/75), Communication Breakdown, Bron-Yr-Aur Stomp( fav version June 27,1977), That's the Way, Tangerine, Immigrant Song, Rock and Roll (preferably from '77 with the extra "lonely"s at the end),The Battle of Evermore, Black Dog, Stairway to Heaven(I'm torn, I love the earliest versions for how sincere Robert actually was when he sang it, w/o all the extra crap, but I love the '77 solos, assuming Jimmy's playing well on a given night) Over the Hills and Far Away, No Quarter, D'yer Maker (heh, nooo..) The Ocean, Dancing Days, The Song Remains the Same, Trampled Underfoot(though not as the final encore of a concert), The Rover intro~Sick Again, Achilles' Last Stand (if only it weren't typically so much faster, but my fav versions are 4/30/77, 8/4/79, 6/29/80.) Nobody's Fault But Mine, In the Evening, and the outro for All My Love.

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I'll go with all. Live music just has a raw energy that studio does not. The 10 that were most dramatically improved in the live imo are:

Heartbreaker

Over The Hills And Far Away

Since I've Been Loving You

Stairway To Heaven

That's The Way

Dazed And Confused

What Is And What Should Never Be

Whole Lotta Love

Bring It On Home

Communication Breakdown

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  • 2 weeks later...

In the last 15 years, I've found I listen to the live material a "whole lotta" more than the studio albums. Maybe that's only fitting, given that Zepp made their reputation on the stage (not discounting the brilliance of the studio material). The live performances have also helped me better appreciate the studio tracks. One prime example is "Over the Hills." The live version helped me better grasp Jimmy's magic on that track

What I definitely prefer live:

  • NQ (especially '75 tour)
  • SIBLY (especially '77 tour)
  • Kashmir
  • TSRTS
  • IMTOD
  • Over the Hills
  • Dazed (especially '75 tour)
  • Sick Again (not a big fan of the studio version)
  • I Can't Quit You

Rain Song is kind of a tossup for me.

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  • 4 weeks later...

Heartbreaker was the one that first popped into my head. I like Jimmy's extended guitar bits and the song seems better suited to the energy of a live performance.

Also Dazed and Confused for much the same reason (perhaps the live song of all live songs!)

And definitely the Albert Hall version of I Cant Quit You Baby.

A few songs that I wouldn't say are "better" but I've heard equally powerful live versions of include: Since I've Been Loving You (the live version on TSRTS is my all time favorite), The Rain Song, and Black Dog.

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Whole Lotta Love

Stairway to Heaven

Communication Breakdown

Black Dog

Heartbreaker

I really like the Stairway and Whole lotta love versions on the "How the West was Won" live album. In my opinion they are better than the originals.

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