Post your favourite live performances

frank1985

Use this thread to post videos of your favourite live performances. To me watching artists perform live at their peak is more thrilling than listening to studio recordings. I'll start....

Stevie Ray Vaughan live in Tokyo - Voodoo Child: 

I haven't come across a better performance of this song anywhere. 

not_the_dj

Wilco, Impossible Germany

Alnico

I hope this counts as a 'Live' performance.

This is sheer talent.

digitalscream

This was controversial last time I posted it, but for me this is as close to perfect as it gets:

bingefeller

There are loads I can think of but this jumped into my head first so it must be my favourite:

EricTheWeary

Just watching the SRV clip, he makes that Strat look like a toy. That tone is amazing - clear but sustaining and biting; his right hand all over the shop and manipulating the controls just to maximise what he's trying to achieve. I'm not sure how much I could listen to it over and over but it is a wonderfully intense performance.

Moss

octatonic

No video but this is from Wayne Krantz's live album 'Two Drink Minimum'.

xSkarloey

I love the guitar and guitar music obviously, but for a live performance nothing I have ever heard either in person or on record has ever come close to touching this by saxophonist John Coltrane. It's a version of his tune called "Naima". 

Jazz might not be your thing but you might want to give it a listen. When he comes in for the second solo at 3:57 is one of my favourite bits of music. 

Paul_C

posted before, but worth repeating

Grumpyrocker

Maiden, Seventh Son 1998 - awesome.

The Gathering, Probably Built in the Fifties

Fuck it let's have another from that gig

jpttaylor

Anything from the 1989 Seattle show, but this will do -

I used to be massively into Metallica years ago but I've mellowed a bit with age. That show however is just ridiculously good fun to watch. All 4 of them absolutely killing it at their peak. I know they've descended into something beyond parody now, but at their height, they must have been a real treat to see live.

And to totally the other end of the spectrum - 

No words for this one. Just an utterly beautiful song played by a truly talented musician.

viz

I was going to post Volodos's and the Berlin Philharmonic's performance of Rachmaninov's 3rd piano concerto, which is quite breathtaking. However it's audio only and quite long, so for those of you who just want a headrush, it's got to be Rachmaninov's prelude in g minor, op. 23/5.

It's complete perfection in its construction - a fast alla marcia section at the start and end - the end section being blisteringly fast and difficult - and with an andante section in the middle. Rachmaninov's music was often slated for being too drawn out (though many of his themes do need time to breathe and develop); in any case, at only a few minutes long, this little gem is over before it's begun, despite having managed to express three complete moods.

After the first alla marcia section, the middle section is so achingly beautiful and lush that it's difficult to understand how a piano, a percussive instrument, can produce such a melifluous sound. But that's because it's not in the gear, it's in the fingers, as we are fond of saying, and this performance by Kissin is one of the very best. Listen to how he can weave the various parts together during the slow part and bring out the long melodic lines, which don't leap out from the score - you have to be so skilled to find them and make them live.