I love live music.

Studio recordings are wonderful, but there’s something about seeing your favorite band take the stage, pick up their gear, step up to their microphones, and take off on the great adventure that is a concert.

No safety net. No second chances.+ It’s just you, the music you created, and the chance to make it sound just as good onstage as it did in the studio.

I love the energy that comes from a live performance. The band puts its music out there and the audience absorbs it. If they’re lucky, the band has that energy reflected back to them throughout the performance.

One of my favorite such moments took a place when Bent Knee played at a little Chicago club called Scuba’s a couple of years back. It was my first time seeing them as the headliner, and the audience was fired up. Bent Knee has always been a high-energy band, and that’s precisely what they sent out into the audience.

I was at the very front, leaning on the stage just to the right of lead vocalist Courtney Swain, who was also a couple of feet above me. On this night, the energy was tangible. The band sent it out and the audience sent it right back. It washed over everything in waves.

The band picked up on it and raised its game. The audience was with them and the wave came right back again! I swear, the wave nearly bowled me over! I was floored to the point where, between tunes, I made eye contact with Courtney, who just happened to look down at me at the same time. I didn’t say a word. I just stared at her, my eyes slightly widened. She smiled and mouthed back, “I KNOW!”

I’ll never forget that night. Moments like that are why I go to concerts. It’s hard to get that kind of feeling from a studio record, regardless of how good it might be. Bands use moments like those to elevate their playing. A song they’ve been playing nightly for months suddenly has new life and new possibilities.

Playing live gives the band a chance to tinker with its music. Maybe they alter the arrangements. Maybe they turn a five-minute single into a twenty-minute jam. You never know what could happen. But you have to be there in order to find out!

If you’re lucky, the band might record a few of its gigs toward the release of a live album. Which brings us to these playlists. Here are some of my favorite bands taking songs I already loved and playing them before a live audience.

Depending on the band, these tunes were recorded in clubs, theaters, stadiums, or in New York City’s Central Park for crowds in the hundreds to hundreds of thousands. The point is, the bands were cooking and the tape was rolling.

I have a couple of these lists. None of them are short. I thought about parsing them out over time, but what’s the point? Just click on the link you like and enjoy.

Here we go! “One … two … three … FOUR …”

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/4eV1JWBx9qWoVcC1NCsmfT?si=vtrfJhK3R0yNsqe9nAX8hg&pi=QMciU9EoTrGO2

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/0q3Bg0iPkDartGFjdq2HPn?si=wxMFDX-HTqebJlmMdWT15Q&pi=yhJrFztaRSqTV

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/4tCHCwV56Gdrf2K2lxP4U7?si=AJWF9NBaQ5SIxVHlB-_ybg&pi=ObiLWRHeSzmy2

+ I have been to maybe three or four shows where the band stopped a song and started over, but it was usually due to a technical problem.

#cirdecsongs

If you would like to have your music reviewed, contact me at cirdecsongs@gmail.com