Let's be clear here: I barely knew any of these albums existed in 1976 - I was ten years old and the only live album I was sorta aware of was KISS's Alive! from the year before. My ignorance was all too apparent as I began referring to all live albums as "alive" albums at the time. Dad had a couple of live albums on eight-track but I forget what they were. The sound of applause in a song on the radio was still a novelty to me in 1976 with my most obvious memory of it being Elton John's "Bennie & the Jets" from a few years earlier though it later turned out that polite applause was merely an effect added later. Dad did eventually get the Live Bullet and Frampton Comes Alive! tapes so I became very familiar with each of those albums and still enjoy them to this day. I was later given a copy of Wings Over America by a disc jockey, the brother of my mother's business partner. And I discovered Blow Your Face Out all on my own about five or six years after it came out as I waded back through the J. Geils Band's back catalog. Tell me about your favorite live albums from 1976 or your first live album ever in the Comments below.
Favorites: Peter Wolf's raps and just about every song but most especially the high-powered "(Ain't Nothin' But A) House Party" which rips the roof off the mutha each and every time I hear it.
Favorites: "Ramblin' Gamblin' Man", "Katmandu", "Get Out Of Denver", the double whammy of "Travelin' Man" and "Beautiful Loser" and of course "Turn The Page" though I can and often do listen to this one straight through, start to finish.
Favorites: Third one in a row I usually listen to as a whole and though the radio singles stand out, the album-length, solo-filled fourteen minute version of "Do You Feel Like We Do" a particular WOW! moment. They say familiarity breeds contempt and if that were true, I'd be sick and tired of this one after forty years but it just ain't so.
Favorites: The beginning, the middle and the end. Would have loved more Beatles songs but not at all displeased with album as is. Since the first time I heard it, the song that puts a smile on my face each and every time is "Let 'Em In" - don't care much for the studio version but this live take gets me every single time. "Do me a flavor/open the door and let 'em in." (Not a typo.)
| release date | Billboard debut date | debut pos | chart peak | weeks on chart | gold/platinum | ||
| Blow Your Face Out | 4/22/76 | 5/22/76 | 76 | 40 | 11 | none | |
| Live Bullet | 4/12/76 | 5/1/76 | 178 | 34 | 167 | 5 x platinum | |
| Frampton Comes Alive! | 1/6/76 | 1/31/76 | 143 | 1 | 97 | 6 x platinum | |
| Wings Over America | 12/10/76 | 12/25/76 | 7 | 1 | 86 | platinum |
Having a brother four years older than me, I knew of all of these records back in the day. He enjoyed a lot of live stuff and went to tons of concerts (back when you could see a band for $10 or less).
ReplyDelete