Astonishing live performances on YouTube

[Bhazor]

Admittedly I'm a sucker for Acapella techno (hence why Medulla is my favourite Byork album[nb]Sadly not been able to find any decent live versions of any Medulla song.[/nb]) but I still like Untrust Us by Crystal Castles covered by Capital Children's Choir. I mean its 8 year olds singing about cocaine with a percussion section that consists of nothing but child beating.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g7a2u9v0V0c

[Steven]

Admittedly I'm a sucker for Acapella techno (hence why Medulla is my favourite Byork album[nb]Sadly not been able to find any decent live versions of any Medulla song.[/nb])

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1b5O_qLvzuk

No?

[Bhazor]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1b5O_qLvzuk

No?

Its decent but the electronics really drown out the choir which should be the focus. I guess they remixed it for the live performance to work better as an uptempo dance track. Still its better than the church performance. No idea what was going on there. Bjork is behind, seemingly reading off an autocue, stumbling over lines.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DcgCnXsfPS8

The smug blond woman smirking all the way through doesn't help.

[Steven]

Yeah, difficult to get all that shit mixed through properly for a soundboard recording.

[Head Gardener]

Motley Crue's final show in LA

[Puce Moment]

Probably just one for me and other fans of Portugese punky dream-pop band sister duo Pega Monstro. Given the chance to debut on mainstream Portugese TV at Xmas, and get tons of exposure, they eschewed the obvious choices for a nice, catchy song like this...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EC2HjKm3HOE

...and instead did a very innaccessible version of their song 'Amêndoa Amarga':

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=23nnHF5ZIOc

('Amêndoa Amarga' usually sounds like this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=irk9EufjGjY)

[holyzombiejesus]

I'd give an inch off my hairline to be able to go back in time and attend this.

THE FOUR TOPS - I CAN'T HELP MYSELF (SUGAR PIE, HONEY BUNCH)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-XXtvQlaK24

Those drummers!

[Bhazor]

I've often been confused by the praise of Stop Making Sense when to me it was a pretty average gig. Especially compared to gig like this

Talking Heads- Born Under Punches

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YO7N2tFb0X8

from the same concert

Talking Heads - Houses in Motion

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NaMzKpNC2Jk

And that Tina Weymouth.

[DukeDeMondo]

The Boss doin Thunder Road at the fabled Hammersmith Odeon gig in 1975. Holy fuck.

https://youtu.be/ypL7b6B0ZTE

[non capisco]

The Boss doin Thunder Road at the fabled Hammersmith Odeon gig in 1975. Holy fuck.

https://youtu.be/ypL7b6B0ZTE

This is absolutely incredible. I love this song so much and this is one of the best versions I've ever seen of it, for all of its comparitive restraint. His voice on this. Man. Fucking Bruce.

When he steps back from the mic slightly for the 'Well, I've got this guitar...' bit. Cunt knew what he was doing. Head spinningly beautiful.

Has there ever been a performance of this song when the 'It's a town full of losers and I'm pulling out of here to win' line hasn't made your heart just lurch? Especially here when the performance is relatively free of the bombast that usually works with Thunder Road. I love The Boss so much. When he's on form it's just the most life affirming shit imaginable.

Thankyou for this clip, Duke.

[buzby]

Amsterdam band Houses cover Joy Division's 'Twenty Four Hours' in a session for Dutch radio station 3FM:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wx5UPXVKKZw

One of the best Joy Division covers I've ever heard. The drumming in particular is the closest I've heard to anyone matching Steve's precision and intensity, and the addition of the organ gives a Doors-like feel to the song, which is appropriate given how they were an influence on Joy Division.

Unfortunately Houses split in 2014 while recording their second album.

[Olarrio]

"Massive" and "vital" are two adjectives i'd use to describe this performance by Kendrick:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-nsngmO1Xew

[up_the_hampipe]

I like 2Pac's performance of this song "Never Call U Bitch Again". He never released it while he was alive but it was put on one of his posthumous albums with awful fucking production and a pretty needless feature from Tyrese Gibson. This might be the only version of the song how he originally intended it. It's not astonishing but it's good. The beat is quite lovely https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yOmd9IEQ5Os

[Blinder Data]

Love this version of Sharon Van Etten's 'Save Yourself'. The clean-sounding guitar, the jaunty rhythm and the way she does the 'oohwoos' - wow. She is so great: https://youtu.be/ekM-Pfe6QE8

[Flouncer]

I found this a couple of months ago, and I nearly shit my pants.

Chet Atkins - Black Mountain Rag

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SoHeMlh_8A0

This is genuinely one of the most impressive things I've ever seen anybody do on the guitar. His use of dynamics is really amazing; the amp justabout breaks into overdrive at the harsher end of the spectrum and he uses this to great effect. Towards the end there's bit where he starts off so gently that you can barely hear the notes, then it builds to a crescendo with an incredibly fast run of pull offs - I can't believe the precision with which he does this. It's absolutely breathtaking. All the while he's cool as a cucumber. Beautiful stuff.

[Sam]

it builds to a crescendo

[DukeDeMondo]

Friend of mine posted this video on Facebook earlier of Judy Garland doin an utterly mesmerising performance of Over The Rainbow as her "tramp" character. I'd never seen it before, fucking incredible. Right old wallop up the gut. The eyes on the woman.

https://youtu.be/ss49euDqwHA

Also looks disarmingly like Paul "Beardy" McCartney throughout, so you keep expecting her to break into some sort of Beardy McCartney "Why don't we da-dhhhoooo ittt in tha" sort of roar but she never does, for she's not into that or RAM or anything else and never has been.

[Dannyhood91]

Kendrick Lamar's Grammy performance qualifies as astonishing.
http://www.theverge.com/2016/2/15/11004624/grammys-2016-watch-kendrick-lamar-perform-alright-the-blacker-the-berry

[Absorb the anus burn]

Talking Heads- Born Under Punches

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YO7N2tFb0X8

Talking Heads - Houses in Motion

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NaMzKpNC2Jk

The whole concert is amazing. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GwWW742T0Wc

I use to tape trade VHS concerts of Talking Heads in the late 80s and 90s. Getting sent this from a pal in Holland was the cultural highlight of the year. My favourite track there is Drugs, appearing at the 20 minute mark... Did America produce a more exciting and simultaneously cerebral band?

There are two more full length Talking Heads concerts available from 1980.

Dortmund, Rockpalast: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pf-fTv1pCgs &

New Jersey: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B-_PC6TlIhs

and each is a gem.

[MuteBanana]

See this is what I love about Meat Loaf. He gives performances like hes about to die. He's fucked. He knows he's fucked. He's still going to go toe to toe with a young songstress and try to prove himself. A legend of a performer is old Meat.

I love Marion Raven and Meat Loaf. They are the Beauty and the Beast. They are a phenomenal duet.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y96FkvcsY4o

[DrGreggles]

Mike Patton & Metropole Orchestra - Mondo Cane - live in Santiago, Chile
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oNM7ETCMpb4

[Phil_A]

As The Associates first three albums just got reissued, a couple of MacKenzie-related treats.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cpnJaSjB8vE
Early performance of Those First Impressions from 1984(from the written-out-of-history Rankine-less album Perhaps). The album version  is fine in itself, but this just kicks the arse of it completely, Billy sings it like he really means it. I wonder if this was what it was originally supposed to sound like before Warners demanded remixes?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qrPyrJ3Gamg
Solo MacKenzie performance of Kites(originally by Simon Dupree & The Big Sound) from a French TV show in the early eighties. A clean version of this has finally surfaced after about eight years, and fucking hell it's good. Properly devastating.

[Neville Chamberlain]

That's bloody marvellous, Phil_A. I would post a live performance of The Associates playing Skipping, but the one I was looking for appears to be blocked by the German authorities :-(

Anyway, I watched this the other day and found myself quite mesmerised. All quite odd, in a 1980s art-rock kind of way:

Tuxedomoon Live Germany 1985 @ NDR Video-Nacht

[MuteBanana]

Wow. Top boy banding as usual for the greatest boy band ever.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CO_xkoM_iAc

[Steven]

That picking pattern looks fucking hard..

[Puce Moment]

That picking pattern looks fucking hard..

Fucking hell!

[Foggy Buntwhistle]

Reckon this has probably been posted already but it's great so fuck youse.

Wire doing Heartbeat. Stupidly good stuff.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AYv3TqwCle4

[Shaky]

Reckon this has probably been posted already but it's great so fuck youse.

Wire doing Heartbeat. Stupidly good stuff.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AYv3TqwCle4

Sorry, but without even clicking on that I know you meant to say Nick Berry.

[Nice Relaxing Poo]

Two live performances that will tear your fucking faces off

Neurosis- Locust Star

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AJE4vCHoAWU


Fugazi- Great Cop

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K10q6a_L41s

[B Piper@The Gates Of Dawn]

Sorry, but without even clicking on that I know you meant to say Nick Berry.

Just settle on Nicky Wire. Best of both worlds that.