The 1970s Come Alive: The Greatest Decade Ever for Live Albums

It was a Golden Era

Finding live recordings of your favorite bands today is as simple as typing a search in YouTube. For example, just search “Born to Run live” (which I do about every other day), and you’ll find more options than you can possibly watch. That’s no exaggeration either; a 2019 Rolling Stone article put the number of times Springsteen has played it in concert at 1,744 and most of those can be found online somewhere.

This cornucopia of live music wasn’t always so easily available. Before the internet, before YouTube, before we all had cameras in our hands 24/7, and before artists grasped the value of digitally releasing every show they’ve ever done we had to wait for the live album. Those “official” live albums are still released, of course, but no decade comes close to the quantity and quality of live albums released in the 1970s.

As to the quantity, a Google search (there’s that damn internet again) lists no fewer than 51 live albums released by major acts between 1970 and 1979. These include gems like AC/DC’s If You Want Blood You’ve Got It in 1978 (yes, this is pre-Back in Black) and Judas Priest’s Unleashed in the East in 1979 (also before they exploded in 1980 with British Steel). There were also live releases by bands not as well known today like UFO and Little Feat.

But quality is always more important than quantity, and these 1970s live albums had that in spades. Choosing my favorites is an almost hopeless task but for you, dear reader, I’ll do my best.

1. Frampton Comes Alive! (Peter Frampton, 1976). This one best personifies the 70s live album era, which is why it’s the image at the top of this article. After leaving Humble Pie in 1971, right about the time their live album Performance Rockin’ the Fillmore was released, Frampton put out four solo albums that basically sold not at all. So what did he do for number five? He released a live double album that spawned three Top 15 singles (unheard of for live recordings) and remains one of the best-selling live albums of all time. He never replicated the album’s success with his later work, but Frampton Comes Alive! made his name forever, and rightly so.

2. Alive II (KISS, 1977). Most bands wouldn’t have the balls to release two live albums in the span of two years (Alive! was released in 1975), but then we all know KISS aren’t most bands. Plus, the fact that they recorded three studio albums between the two live ones (Destroyer and Rock and Roll Over in 1976 and Love Gun in 1977) meant there was plenty of new material to present live. Some early fans consider Alive II a little too polished, but for the 11-year-old punk I was in ‘77 this album was enough for me to officially join the KISS Army, a fan club which included a young Garth Brooks and in 2008 added then-Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice (how many bands can say that?). My favorite tracks remain “Detroit Rock City” and “Hard Luck Woman.”

3. Live and Dangerous (Thin Lizzy, 1978). While I am not presenting these in any specific order — and with all due respect to the 50 other bands that released live albums in the 1970s — for me this one is the best by a mile. It showcases one of the most underrated bands ever, with one of the greatest frontmen in bassist/singer Phil Lynott. The album is solid start to finish, and is proof that Thin Lizzy was one of those rare bands that were so much better live than ever came across on a studio recording. If “Cowboy Song” doesn’t make you roll down your windows and blow out your speakers, you may have been born without a soul.

4. Wings Over America (Paul McCartney and Wings, 1976). For you kids out there, Wings was McCartney’s band after the Beatles, and in the 70s they were big. Well, Paul was big, in no small part because he had been in that earlier band. Never one to do things halfway, McCartney released Wings Over America as a triple album. It contains the best version of his best post-Beatles song, “Maybe I’m Amazed,” as well as five Beatles songs, three of which had never been played live before: “Lady Madonna,” “Blackbird,” and “The Long and Winding Road.” This chronicle of McCartney’s first concert tour of America in 10 years reached #1 on the US Album charts, but only #8 in the UK. Maybe if it had been Wings Over Britain…

5. It’s Alive (Ramones, 1979). A double live album from a 1977 show at London’s Rainbow Theatre, this one is my favorite after Live and Dangerous. It’s 59 minutes of Joey and the boys being exactly who they are (and why you love them), blasting through 28 songs in the same amount of time it takes Rush to play three on All the World’s a Stage (I exaggerate, but not by much). From “Rockaway Beach” to “Blitzkrieg Bop” to covers of “Surfin’ Bird” and “California Sun,” it’s rock the way God intended it: loud, fast, and fun. Gabba Gabba Hey, baby.

There are so many more I could include, from Led Zeppelin’s The Song Remains the Same to The Who Live at Leeds to Cheap Trick Live at Budokan. But these are the ones that stand out to me all these years later. Check them out and leave me your favorites in the comments.