LIVE HIT SONGS

There was a plea for money on one of the local public radio stations and the gift one got for donating, I don't remember, a few hundred dollars, was a DVD of the fortieth anniversary of the concert at "Woodstock". It seemed like a good DVD to get because there is supposedly new music that was not released on the first Woodstock album. The first Woodstock has terrific live performances by artists such as Santana, Ten Years After, The Who, and of course Jimi Hendrix.

Having said this, the blog is not about Woodstock since that's about a month away. Rather, it is a roundabout way of doing a blog about live music. There have been a number of terrific songs recorded live that have become hits. There is a list of Top Ten Live Hits in a list at About.com.

There are a few good songs on the list. These include Cheap Trick's "I Want You to Want Me". That song could be better if it wasn't so repetitive. They probably say "I want you to want me" about fifty times.

Just went to the lyric websites to check out how many "I want you to want me"'s they say. They stop at seven in the end. I don't know, maybe they don't say it as much as I think. Actually I think "Surrender" from the same album is a much better song. But that's just me.

Another song they have that I like from the list is "Show Me the Way" by Peter Frampton. It's amazing how both of these songs I've mentioned so far did nothing when they first came out, then became hits once they were released as a live version. There is an energy there that is not present in the studio recording. In fact, the studio recordings by comparison sound rather lame.

This brings up a good point. I like some of those MTV live acoustic sets that were performed a while back. And some of these were included on the list. These are good but don't really do it for me because, once again, they lack the energy. Nirvana is an exception because they did an incredible set. Some of these MTV live recordings were on the top ten list. They shouldn't be on the list because something happens sometimes when a song is played acoustically. It loses something. You have to be really good to pull it off. For example, Dave Grohl of The Foo Fighters does an acoustic version of "Everlong" that is fantastic. A lot of times the songs are slowed so much that they become listless. It bugs me sometimes when they do that, especially if I like the original.

It doesn't happen that often now that a song that was recorded live becomes a hit. I tried googling for the last hit song that was recorded live, but couldn't find it. I'm sure it's out there somewhere. It is kind of a shame because music is heard best when it's live. Or at least a live recording of it.