Ticket 2 Ride

I honestly don’t acquire as many live recordings as I used to, but I recently listened to three albums that deserve mention.

Recording concerts used to require a large truck of recording equipment and a team of technicians. Mobile recording trucks were quite popular at the time. Ronnie Lane and the Rolling Stones each owned these trucks and rented them out for location recording. The quality of live recordings was not guaranteed. Bands didn’t augment their instrumentation like they do today, so the music could sound thin, and definitely not as rich as a studio recording. It’s common practice now to replace vocals or instruments that are off-key, and to add extra vocals or instruments to “sweeten” the sound. In the age of mixing board recording to digital, it’s much easier to record, and it’s common. With AI, technology allows older recording to be improved. The phrase “live recording” can mean different things, different levels of “live.”

Here are three sets of live recordings, one from 1972, one from the period 2003-2009, and one from 2024. Sound quality of all three are quite good.

Radiohead: Hail to the Thief, Live Recordings (2003-2009)

This album consists of music taken from several live shows of the music from the 2003 album Hail to the Thief. Lead vocalist Thom Yorke is working on a Shakespeare Hamlet/Hail To The Thief theatre production. Okay.

“My initial reaction was, this is Hamlet, therefore it’s sacrosanct, it’s untouchable. You can’t,” Yorke said. “But the idea didn’t go away. It planted a little seed in my head.”

The concerts were from London, Amsterdam, Buenos Aires, and Dublin between 2003 and 2009. One of the tapes was found in a garage and musically repaired. It sounds fine to me so that must have done a tremendous rescue job.

Hail to the Thief is a rather challenging album to sink your teeth into. After Radiohead changed their sound to abstract soundscapes, this album represented their new path. I used to feel this way about some of Bowie’s work, but usually I found a way inside them. Hail to the Thief was released after George W. Bush’s election as president, and the war on terror was in full force. Is it a political album? Well there are certainly themes and references to events of 25 years ago, but Yorke said the subject came from other areas too.

An offshoot of Radiohead is The Smile, another abstract and challenging band – but I admit that I get them, more than I do some of Radiohead music. Still, Hail to the Chief, Live is really for the serious fan.

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Johnny Marr, Look Out Live!

Recorded at the Hammersmith Apollo, London in 2024, the . The culmination of his 2024 Spirit Power tour.

The two-CD set consists of 22 tracks of Marr’s solo career, The Smiths, Electronic and a Bowie cover. Two songs are performed with Pet Shop Boys’ Neil Tennant, Electronic’s “Getting Away With It” David Bowie‘s “Rebel Rebel.”

The average listener will know the Smiths tunes (which Marr co-wrote with Morrissey), the Electronic song which was a big hit, and Bowie’s anthem from his glam period. The question is how familiar fans will be with Marr’s solo material.

“Sensory Street” Fever Dreams Pts 1–4

‘Panic” The Smiths, single

“Generate! Generate!” The Messenger One of my favorites of Marr.

“Spirit Power and Soul” Fever Dreams Pts 1–4

“This Charming Man” The Smiths, single

“Somewhere” from The Best of Johnny Marr, new single

“Walk Into The Sea” Call the Comet

“The Answer” The Best of Johnny Marr, single

“Please, Please, Please, Let Me Get What I Want”. The Smiths, single. A beautiful song, performed by Marr on acoustic guitar, with synth string accompaniment.

“Armatopia” Johnny Marr single

“Get The Message” A hit for Marr’s post-Smiths group, Electronic.

“Hi Hello” Call the Comet. Sweet song. Great ringing guitar.

“How Soon Is Now?” The Smiths Hatful of Hollow. The raw power of the original.

“Easy Money” The Playground. Very enjoyable performance.

“Rebel Rebel” David Bowie cover featuring Neil Tennant of The Pet Shop Boys. Solid cover.

“Getting Away With It” from Electronic’s debut album, featuring Neil Tennant). Marr and Tennant on vocals. Very enjoyable.

“You Just Haven’t Earned It Yet, Baby” The Smiths, single. Rocking guitar sound.

“There Is A Light That Never Goes Out”. The Smiths’ The Queen is Dead. My favorite Smith’s song. Marr’s version has always been better than the original.

“The Passenger” Iggy Pop cover

“New Town Velocity” The Messenger. One of Marr’s best post-Smith songs.

“Stop Me If You Think You’ve Heard This One Before” The Smiths Strangeways, Here We Come.

“Bigmouth Strikes Again” The Smiths’ The Queen is Dead. A great closer to the album.

Power to the People, John Lennon & Yoko Ono/Plastic Ono Band, The ONE TO ONE CONCERT Hybrid ‘Best of” Show

There are several versions on this concert. This single disc is a “hybrid” of the afternoon and evening shows. Other versions contain the full concerts, blu-ray and other mixes, demos, jams plus other souvenirs.

The sound quality is amazing, whatever technology Sean Lennon and Paul Hicks utilize delivers great sound. The original sound recording needed some work and what I’ve heard, they got it right.

The point of these concerts was to raise money for the Willowbrook State School, which had been the subject of a Geraldo Rivera investigative report on the deplorable living conditions of the mentally handicapped children.

The concerts included songs from Lennon’s solo albums and non-album singles, as well as “Come Together.” Lennon and Ono, along with drummer Jim Keltner, were backed by Elephant’s Memory at Madison Square Garden. Elephant’s Memory Bob Fries and Phil Spector handled the original sound recording.

“Power to the People (Intro)”A short a-cappella version of the song.

“New York City” From the Some Time in New York City album. It’s been a long time since I listened to that album, generally, I find it unpleasant. This is song is no classic but it’s decent. The live version is enjoyable.

“It’s So Hard” A Lennon song from Imagine.

“Move on Fast” An Ono song that would appear on Approximately Infinite Universe. It’s a rocking song.

“Well Well Well” From John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band. I find it more accessible than the original.

“Born in a Prison” Another song from Some Time in New York City. Written and sung by Ono, its subject matter is rather negative, yet the melody is much more punchy.

“Instant Karma! (We All Shine on)” A good performance, the band was strong on this song.

“Mother” Lennon’s original album m version is raw and powerful, this version is more subdued, but still a struggle for me to enjoy.

“We’re All Water” An Ono song from Some Time in New York City. It’s a rocker that would have been better without her screams.

“Come Together” A decent live version. He didn’t like pulling his songs from the past, this being an exception.

“Imagine” As a live performance, the song was a bit underwhelming, but it’s hard not to enjoy it anyway.

“Open Your Box” Lennon said it was banned in America. Despite its risqué and annoying lyrics, the music is pretty good.

“Cold Turkey” A bit more restrained than the single version, and somehow more powerful.

The last few songs and one reading, are the weak part of the album. “Don’t Worry Kyoko”, “Hound Dog”, “Law and Order” and “Give Peace a Chance.”

Sadly, we have very little solo John Lennon live. I found this album a mixed bag. Any live Lennon is interesting, but a few of the songs they selected to perform are weak or the arrangements are meh. I would say that two-thirds of the album is very good, with half the album very memorable.