Friday 5: Best Live Cuts Ever!
Happy Friday, MetalSucks reader! Welcome to MetalSucks Friday 5, our awesome series that appears every Friday (duh) on MetalSucks (duhh) and involves the quantity of five (duhhh).
Here’s how it works: A list of best/worst/weirdest/whatever five somethings is posted by one of your beloved MetalSucks contributors or by one of our buds (like you!). Then you, our cherished reader, checks it out, has a chuckle, then chimes in with a list of the same. No sweat, just whatever springs to mind, k? (Just like that movie about those losers working at a Chicago record store!) After all, it’s Friday — the day dedicated by the gods to mindless, fun time-wasting.
Here we go!
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THE FIVE
What five live tracks have kinda replaced the originals in your heart?
THE LISTER
Anso DF, MetalSucks senior editor
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“Eyes Of A Stranger/Anarchy-X” by Queensryche
from Operation: Livecrime | EMI
A live album might be more exciting than good. That’s why live albums have a shorter life expectancy than studio albums; love never dies, but excitement fades. But the rare “immortal live album” captures something momentous and awesome. Parts of it might even spring to your mind before the original. Like, if I encounter the studio version of “Eyes Of A Stranger,” I’m a bit blue. It’s perfection, a juggernaut; but on the Operation: Mindcrime live album, it’s even more. It was so intense in person that I was about to barf.
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“I Don’t Know” by Ozzy Osbourne
from Randy Rhoads Tribute | Epic
A live album might liberate awesome songs from crappy production. Sometimes you’re a fan of the original versions until a live album arrives; then suddenly you realize they’ve always sounded super weak. PS I worship those last few bars of this solo, holy shit.
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“Earthshine” by Rush
from Rush In Rio | Atlantic
A classic live album captures the evolution of its songs. Good ideas arrive after production wraps, things change, shit happens. I fall in love with some of these fills, extensions, innovations — and a chilly breeze blows through my heart when the original version cruelly omits them.
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“Paris Is Burning (Live in Berlin 1982)” by Dokken
from Breaking The Chains | Elektra
It took a couple decades for me to check my perception that this jam was recorded at a huge arena show. That’s always how it sounded to me. But in 1982, was Dokken at that level of venue? And who’s singing those backing vocals?
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“Powerslave” by Iron Maiden
from Live After Death | Capitol
It blew our minds that Iron Maiden did four freaking sold-out nights at Long Beach Arena. That must’ve been chaos to attend and play those shows, everybody all pumped about the hugeness of an awesome metal band in the era of Satanic panic and the PMRC. If only there was some sort of document of those four magical nights.
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Your turn! Have a great wknd!
