From the pompadour-stoked ecstasy of Little Richard, to the swivel-hipped swagger of Elvis Presley, to the sheer euphoria triggered by The Beatles, rock and roll has always been most exciting when it’s experienced live. Some artists deliver that experience by way of impeccable musicianship, while others emphasize stage props and spectacular showmanship. The best bands, however, combine great music and great theatrics, delivering a one-two punch that bedazzles. Below are 10 of the very best.
10. Queen
Blessed with one of rock’s most charismatic singers, as well as a sensational guitarist in Brian May, Queen were destined from the start to be a spectacular live act. By the late ’70s, the group had amassed a cache of rock anthems – “We Will Rock You” and “We are the Champions,” to name just two – that were seemingly ready-made for stadium shows. The group’s 1985 appearance at Live Aid, where 75,000-plus fans joined in on “Radio Ga Ga,” was a high point of that seminal event.
9. Pink Floyd
No band pioneered the idea of the rock show as a mind-altering theatrical experience quite like Pink Floyd did. Dating back to their Syd Barrett-led days, ambitious light shows, dazzling screen projections and lasers developed from nuclear research bolstered the group’s performances. Their legendary use of “inflatables” reached a zenith with The Wall shows, during which several characters from the album were brought to life in the form of massive string puppets.
8. Iron Maiden
Iron Maiden have sometimes been called heavy metal’s answer to The Who. That assessment stems mainly from the band’s intricate song-themes, but it could also apply to their live shows. The group’s 1985 two-album opus, Live After Death, set a benchmark for every band seeking to create the heavy metal equivalent of Live at Leeds or At Fillmore East. Iron Maiden remain metal’s greatest road warriors, having amassed well over 2,000 live shows during their career.
7. The Stooges
The Velvet Underground and The Stooges may have co-fathered punk rock, but it was The Stooges, alone, who acted out that music’s primal energy on stage. Like a spring-loaded, triple-jointed dynamo, Iggy Pop leaped, crawled and flung himself across (and often off) the stage in ways that seemed perilous and ecstatic at the same time. Video footage from 1970 that shows a shirtless (as always) Iggy, smearing himself with peanut butter while hoisted on the hands of an adoring crowd, has become iconic.
6. AC/DC
In recent years, AC/DC shows have featured a giant train crashing through the rear of the stage, a 60-foot-tall blow-up “Rosie” doll and canons exploding with sonic-boom ferocity. To this day, however, when it comes to entertainment value, no prop surpasses the sheer manic spirit of Angus Young. Decked out in his famous school uniform, locked seemingly in perpetual adolescence, Young duck-walks furiously from one side of the stage to the other, stopping occasionally to deliver a solo while lying on his back. Well into their fourth decade, AC/DC still thrills.
5. The Flaming Lips
The glory years of indie rock were rife with bands who believe that live shows involved little more than cranking up the guitars. Not The Flaming Lips. Puppets, intricate light shows, man-sized plastic bubbles and raining balloons are among the many props they’ve used to enhance their psychedelic space-rock on-stage. The Flaming Lips also pioneered the “Headphone Concert,” wherein they used a low-powered FM transmitter to further enhance the listening experience for audiences.
4. The Allman Brothers Band
Other bands have had greater visual appeal, but no group has ever topped The Allman Brothers Band when it comes to live musical artistry. Blessed with some of the greatest guitarists in rock history, the veteran Southern rockers were the first group to incorporate the improvisational ethos of jazz into rock instrumentals. It’s hardly surprising that their masterpiece, At Fillmore East, is a live recording. The band’s late manager, Phil Walden, rightly proclaimed the two-album set “one of the foundations of modern music.”
3. The Rolling Stones
It’s largely based on their live performances that The Rolling Stones earned their reputation as “the world’s greatest rock and roll band.” Even as a bare-bones five-piece (or six, counting Ian Stewart), they were sensational. Buoyed by rock’s tightest rhythm section, Keith Richards and his six-string mate (first Brian Jones, then Mick Taylor and finally Ron Wood) embodied the essence of dual-rock-guitar. It helps, of course, that the band is fronted by one of the world’s most charismatic singers.
2. Led Zeppelin
To experience a Led Zeppelin concert was to hear blues-rock performed in ways more powerful than it had ever been delivered. Frontman Robert Plant epitomized rock swagger, while the rhythm section of John Paul Jones and John Bonham barreled forth like a locomotive filled with granite. Best of all, however, were the gargantuan riffs that exploded from the guitar of Jimmy Page. All this, plus the band delivered some of the greatest acoustic sets ever delivered on stage.
1. The Who
No band captured the essence of rock and roll better than The Who did during their glory years. Pete Townshend’s gymnastic pogo leaps and windmilled guitar, Roger Daltrey’s lasso-style microphone flourishes, Keith Moon’s frenetic drum work and John Entwistle’s flying fingers nearly made you forget just how powerful the music was – but not quite. Power chords have never been delivered with such glorious abandon. Small wonder Townshend viewed smashing the equipment as the only fitting finale to such a wondrous spectacle.
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