Top 10 Live Albums of 2018!

Well here’s my Top 10  Live Releases of 2018!  Some pretty cool Live Albums and some surprises here I’m sure…

Thanks for reading…

1-JOHN CORABI:Live 94 (One Night In Nashville)- Corabi last year recorded live the lone Motley Crue album that everyone in the Crue has ignored except John since 1994! Thank God Corabi  listened to what we as fans having been saying for two decades now that the Motley Corabi album from 94 is perhaps the best Crue album that Nikki Sixx doesn’t want to know about! John plays the whole Crue 94 album front to back and it takes the second track in when John tosses down a wicked version of Uncle Jack that you know Crabby isn’t fucking around! Bravo!

2- DOKKEN: Return To The East-Geez for a Live Album that feature’s sloppy sequencing/Totally doctored up Lead Vocals/Crowd fade out’s and a Lead Singer babbling on about some mumbo jumbo before launching into the big power ballad hit (Alone Again) I have to say I love this album even though with all the flaws on it sounding live it’s the songs that count.   Dokken were a big listening curve for me back in the early to late 80’s and the fact that they had brilliant songs like The Hunter/Breaking The Chains/Dream Warriors/Paris Is Burning all makes this such a worthwhile listen. George Lynch is a huge reason why this album lifts off. Lynch smokes the guitar on this album and lets us all know that in 2018 George is still a beast!  If Lynch wasn’t on this album ‘Return To The East’ would have perhaps been a no show here as I have zero Interest in a Lynch-less Dokken! Plus if it wasn’t for all the facts that I had listed against this album in my first sentence this would have been Numero Uno for the year! Oh well…..

3-ALICE COOPER: A Paranormal Evening With- I don’t have much Live Coop other than his 86 Comeback Show but this Live album released this past August has the Coop firing on all four Cylinders! What a great band and set list. It also helped that the Coop rolled into Tbay two days before this album came out so it was Coop Week at my House! 

4-RUSH: Live at the Pink Pop Festival- This has to be the rawest sounding Official Release ever! (Pink Pop is the added portion to the Hemisphere’s Deluxe Edition) The mix is excellent. The musicianship is without a doubt mind-blowing and what else can I add other than  it’s RUSH!

5-THE ROLLING STONES: Voodoo Lounge: Uncut- The Stones not only release one but two excellent albums from 1994 and 1999! Voodoo Lounge Uncut is the one I will go with  at #5 as it’s a full show from the biggest stadium show I had ever seen still to this day! 28 Live Tracks! 

6-THE ROLLING STONES: San Jose 99(From the Vault Collection)- Another fine live album from the Stones from 1999 released this past year!  The Stones know how to do it. Release actual live albums and leave it  alone. At one point in the show  Keith is talking to the crowd while Ronnie Wood’s guitar is buzzing loud. Keith tell’s him to ‘Settle Down over there Ronnie!” and Keith just laughs! See that’s the great thing don’t edit that shit out it’s Gold! Well Done Chaps!

7-THE KILLER DWARFS: Live No Guff- The Dwarfs slam dunk one fine live album out and Gerry Finn dials up some stellar 6 string work while the rest of the boys blitz and rip through a classic set of Dwarf Nuggets! Good Hard Rock songs and Hard Luck Town is a Friggin brilliant song that can stand toe to toe with a lot of bigger named acts songs! Yeah I’m serious!

8-TEENAGE HEAD: Endless Party- In what would fall under the ‘My Blog My Rules’ category would be this ripper of a recorded Live album from 1985 that was recently released here in Canada via Ladano’s format of choice iTunes! The late Frankie Venom sings and snarls his way through from the get go and you get cranked up versions of classics like Tornado/Drivin Wild/ Let’s Shake/Disgusteen  and many more. Such a great revisit…

9-GUNS N ROSES: Sound City Sessions: Gunners in that massive box reissue of Appetite for Destruction released a 12 song section of the album called Sound City Sessions in which a bunch of tracks that made up the ‘Appetite’ release are played live in the studio back in 1986 a year before the finished album was released. It’s awesome. Guns being young and broke and going for the throat…

10- L.A GUNS: Made In Milan: When I feel like listening to some straight ahead goof ball Rock LA Guns delivers it in spades in which they recorded this live album in Milan. Traci Gunns a guy no one talks about but let’s face the facts folk’s that Traci can still  rip out some decent solo’s and LA Guns deliver some fun listening dumbo rock and at times that’s just what the doctor ordered! Now I read that there are two versions of this band that are going to be touring next year which makes for great old dude drama! See! Goofball Rock is alive and well heading into 2019!

There ya have it Folk’s My Top 10 live albums of the year!