If I Wanted To Hear The Album… I'd Just Go To The Concert!

It seems like every time I turn around some band is announcing that they are going on tour and that they will be performing a particular album from their catalog in its entirety.  I also remember that old statement “If I wanted to hear the album I would stay at home and listen to it on my stereo!”  So why is there an exception to this rule?  I’ll tell you why.

How many times have you gone to see a favorite band/performer and noticed that they seem to play a lot of the same songs?  How many times have you said, “But they NEVER played THIS song off of THIS album?”  When a band performs an album in its entirety, you are getting to hear a work of art in a live setting and in these cases, you’re getting to hear songs that in many cases were never performed in a live setting.

So who started this trend anyways?  Well, I’m not going to bet my life savings on this but from the research that I did, I’m guessing that this may have started with Pink Floyd.  Back in 1972-73, Pink Floyd was touring in support of Dark Side of The Moon.  Depending on what leg of the tour you were seeing, you got to hear a set of songs such as “One Of These Days”, “Careful With That Axe Eugene” and “Echoes” and then the 2nd (or 1st) set would be Dark Side of The Moon in it’s entirety.

This practice became a common one with Floyd in future tours as they would perform both “Animals” and “Wish You Were Here” in their entirety with a few Dark Side of the Moon tunes as encores on 1977’s “In The Flesh” tour.  How fucking amazing would that have been to see?  In 1995, on Pink Floyd’s “Division Bell” tour they would perform “Dark Side of the Moon” in it’s entirety for the last time only to be revived by Roger Water’s who I felt did a less than par representation of this masterpiece.   I totally get this concept.  Some albums are meant to be heard in their entirety in order to get the full picture.

Back in 1988, Seattle based Heavy Metal band Queensryche did something a metal band had yet to do up to this point.  They released a concept album entitled “Operation: Mindcrime.”  The album, when listened to front to back told the story of, well, it’s a pretty intense concept of corrupt social and political commentary.  Anyways, it’s an album that is meant to be listened to front to back.  Queensryche hit the road to support this album as an opening act for Def Leppard (among others) and the sets consisted of a few songs from each of their albums.  In 1992 when the band was on tour in support of their hit album “Empire”, Queensryche found themselves headlining arenas and embraced this opportunity to perform “Operation: Mindcrime” in it’s entirety utilizing the current multimedia technology of screens and lazers.  The band even documented this on their “Operation: Livecrime” box set which is totally worth picking up!

Another band that took performing an entire album live to another level was Phish.  Starting back on Halloween of 1995, Phish would perform a full album as their “costume” every Halloween.  Over the years, Phish would perform albums such as The Beatles “White Album,” “Quadrophenia” by The Who, “Remain In Light” by the Talking Heads and “Loaded” by The Velvet Underground.”  In 2009 when the band made their “comeback” from a few years off, the band revisited the tradition and performed The Rolling Stones classic Exile on Main St.”

Just recently, I saw Megadeth perform their classic album “Rust In Peace” in its entirety.  It was the 20th anniversary of this classic Metal masterpiece and what a great treat it was to hear this album done front to back and done extremely well.  They were performing songs that had never been performed live ever so getting to hear these was an amazing experience.

I guess that concept of performing an album in its entirety is a cool one but if you’re going to do this, you need to make sure that its your finest work that you are performing.  When I saw Bay Area metal legends Testament this year on tour with Megadeth, they were performing their debut album “The Legacy” in its entirety.  The trouble with this was that this isn’t their best piece of work.  Yeah, it’s a great album but why not do “Practice What You Preach” which was a much better album?

Rush just announced that they are going to tour this summer and perform their album “Moving Pictures” in its entirety.  I’ve always been a casual Rush fan but I would totally think that this would be a kick ass show as “Moving Pictures” is one of their best albums.  I’m not sure what songs on that album have never been performed live but again, this is a great example of a band picking a grand piece of work and giving it the live treatment.  Performing an album in is entirety is challenging, risky and exciting! This concept only works if you’re going to not only do your best album but that you’re going to do it in a way that won’t bore your audience to death.

There are so many albums I wouldn’t mind hear being performed in its entirety.  I’d love to hear Aerosmith to “Toys In The Attic” and “Get Your Wings.”  AC/DC doing “Back In Black” would be pretty kick ass.  How about Bob Dylan doing “Blonde On Blonde” or even Iron Maiden performing “Powerslave” in its entirety?  I’d love to hear Pearl Jam do “Ten” from front to back and I’d even love to see Drivin’ N Cryin’ perform “Mystery Road” from front to back.  I could totally do without having to hear Motley Crue perform “Dr. Feelgood” in its entirety though as they did on their Cruefest 2009 tour.  Could you imagine having to sit through that?  The only thing I can think of that’s worse than seeing Motley Crue live is seeing them perform THAT album live.  Count me out!

Discover more from Southeast of Heaven

Subscribe now to keep reading and get access to the full archive.

Continue reading