When I started collecting records in the early 90s, when I received my uncle's guidance, I didn't want live albums. Outside of Live at Leeds I didn't like any that I had ever heard. This eventually changed, and you'd think that after I realized I much preferred Hendrix live recordings to his studio output, I might move towards Band of Gypsies at some point. But by then it had been on my list for so long that it lost its lustre and seemed like a record from a bygone era I'd moved past from. I generally buy very little 'classic rock' anymore, even if Hendrix breaks out of pigeonholing him like that.
I actually totally understand that.
Despite being a huge fan of the Dead, I really only listened to their studio albums for like 20 years after getting into them. Let that sink in. A Dead fan that doesn't listen to any of their live music.
I did love Dead Set and One From The Vault but I actually thought their studio recordings were so perfect I didn't wanna hear "diminished" versions of those. I had gotten a bootleg and very few of the songs that night sounded that good and I wasn't into 15-minute jazz jam sessions yet, so I just quit there.
Now, I still LOVE their studio recordings and I think Dead fans who say they don't like them and that's not the spirit of the band and all that are ****ing idiots (and I'm close friends with a lot of them) but I've come to really appreciate, very, very deeply, what they were doing live and it's really a huge part of the way I play music myself (the philosophy, not the actual music).
And to you and
Captain Terror:
It's funny, my friend, Kate, was over the other night and she said, "Ya know, I don't think I could be friends with someone who didn't like The Grateful Dead. I just wouldn't trust them."
Which I get because listening to the Dead is as much Philosophical and Spiritual as it is Musical. And I might say that about Jimi, too.