Listening to new songs live before they made it on an album
 

Okay so, when you have heard songs played live before they have a studio version, don't you always feel disapointed when you hear the album/EP version? Because there's not the same energy, too much production, etc?

I take the example of Animal Collective for instance, last year I listened to lots of Strawberry Jam songs live on bootlegs, and then when I finally heard the studio versions I was kinda disapointed, because I thought the vocals in Peacebone missed that energy, the explosion in Cuckoo Cuckoo was not so powerful, etc. (finally with the time I got used to those studio versions and now I love them) Right now I listen to loads of new boots were they play all those incredible new songs, and I fear I'll be disappointed when I'll hear the album. But Animal Collective is not the only band that does me this impression...

Do you feel the same?

no!

Saw Sonic Youth a week or so before Thousand Leaves came out. They played the whole thing, then Death Valley '69. Then adios.

All that new material, and such dense material, was too much to take in at once. Great great show, but it would've been cool to have been familiar with some of the songs.

Panda Bear's latest stuff...

shit.. sleater-kinney were doing some fucking bad ass, sonic nurse kinda shit live, and the album was ehh in comparison.

honestly, I don't enjoy hearing new songs live, I prefer to hear them on an album and get to know and feel them, before they transfer into live energy, that is except for improvisation/jamming kind of tunes, where as those are purely live and rarely translate well onto an album. That is why both I think the S-K stage show did not translate well into the Woods (which was a good album but not quite the stage show in 2003) and why Sonic Nurse is such a fucking gem of an album (because it DID translate live energy onto the record)


exactly

I also enjoyed a Shannon Wright album Over the Sun for this, because in 2002/2003 she had a simply WILD stage show, which was on none of the albums, so she made the album to give us the stage show, and it worked brilliantly, but then again, Steve Albini recorded it so that says a lot..