Bands who were better live than in the studio

Inspiral carpets (with Tom Hingley)
The Smiths
The Cure
Marillion
Moody Blues
Glen Campbell
Marillion produced some excellent studio albums- Misplaced Childhood is sublime. I never saw them live in their pomp. I could imagine the Smiths were excellent.
Some interesting comments about session musicians above- particularly regarding Steely Dan. I would agree with that. Also Fagin and Beckett were perfectionists, which could be an issue performing live.

Thinking post Smiths- this is brilliantly done live- far far better than the studio version :)

 
Biffy Clyro for me, had no interest in them until I saw them at Milton Keynes Bowl in 2011 warming up for Foo Fighters, they were brilliant and I’ve been a big fan since.
 
I'll go against the flow here and say I way prefer recorded music to live music.

Live music: usually the sound quality is appalling - almost always volume takes precedence over fidelity, so you end up with just noise just short of distortion, or even exceeding it. That and the noise of people around you talking/shouting/screaming.

A sound engineer who has different bands on every night is expected to get the perfect sound for each one even though they're completely different - not going to happen.

Acoustics inside most venues are usually terrible, they're made for housing large crowds of people first and music quality last - if thought of at all.

Recorded music: by and large the records you hear are exactly how the artist wanted you to hear it. Granted this isn't always the case as some people have commented but it usually is, especially for projects with bigger budgets.

What's more, with a record at home you can tailor the sound to your own tastes, including your own choice of hifi and then you can use EQ, volume and speaker positioning etc to make it exactly how you want.
 
My Bloody Valentine were stunning live, but a bit fey on record.
I think that stunning is exactly the right word. I saw them with The Jesus and Mary Chain and Dinosaur Jr. back in 1992 at Whitley Bay ice rink and I couldn't hear properly for about a week afterwards. Hell of a gig that. But no bar. That was a bit of a b***r.

Edit: Come to think of it Blur were on that same bill too and they were surprisingly good. I'm not a fan at all but that was back when they'd only released one album and they sounded a lot punkier and snottier live then they ever did on record.
 
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I'll go against the flow here and say I way prefer recorded music to live music.

Live music: usually the sound quality is appalling - almost always volume takes precedence over fidelity, so you end up with just noise just short of distortion, or even exceeding it. That and the noise of people around you talking/shouting/screaming.

A sound engineer who has different bands on every night is expected to get the perfect sound for each one even though they're completely different - not going to happen.

Acoustics inside most venues are usually terrible, they're made for housing large crowds of people first and music quality last - if thought of at all.

Recorded music: by and large the records you hear are exactly how the artist wanted you to hear it. Granted this isn't always the case as some people have commented but it usually is, especially for projects with bigger budgets.

What's more, with a record at home you can tailor the sound to your own tastes, including your own choice of hifi and then you can use EQ, volume and speaker positioning etc to make it exactly how you want.
In general I agree but very much depends on the venue. I've had some great gigs ruined by terrible sound (Pulp at Hyde Park a few years was laughable, ditto the Stroke at Victoria Park).

That said, there are a number of venues who consistently get it right - always worth getting there to see a band if possible. Sage in Gateshead is probably top of the tree in the North East although the Cluny always used to have cracking sound a few years back (not been since I lived up there).

As for festivals, I'm continually amazed by the quality of sound at End of The Road festival. Big outdoor stages sounding like studios - I saw Deerhunter there on the main stage couple of years back and the sound was simply phenomenal - can't remember anything as good as that to be honest.
 
I forgot an obvious one. Walter Trout. Absolutely stunning live, ripping out brilliant guitar solos all night. I'd go out of my way to go and see him play. Have tried listening to several of his albums but just find them bland/generic blues rock.
 
Yessongs was a fabulous album and preferred the live versions on that album to their studio equivalents
 
I haven't really contributed to this thread properly yet. I thought that The Cardiacs were always way better live then on record. RIP Tim. That was a horribly cruel thing to happen to a musician. Just to turn things around a bit how about bands that are/ were great on record but **** live? Everyone's mind will will immediately jump to The Stone Roses but Pavement were notoriously sloppy live too and I was never a fan of Placebo but I knew loads of girls who were because they fancied Brian Molko but they all said that he couldn't sing live.
 
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I used to have a Telecaster that looked exactly like that one that Jonny Greenwood is playing in that video but mine was a cheap Japanese copy made by 'Fenix' I think. Sold that years ago though. Actually I didn't sell it. I traded it with the bloke who came to fix my boiler. He didn't charge me for the job and I gave him the guitar in return because my Rickenbacker was already in the post from Reidys so I didn't need the telecaster any more.
 
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Just to try and keep this thread going, because it's been a good one I remember John Cale being fantastic live. I'm a big VU fan but Cale and Reed's solo stuff was usually a bit underwhelming to me on record. Before the gig I found myself in the toilets in St. David's Hall in Cardiff taking a pee and standing next to Mr. Cale himself who was doing the same thing that I was doing. I really wanted to say something to him but it just didn't seem like the right moment. He was wearing a smart suit with red Converse trainers which seemed like a bit of an odd fashion choice to me at the time but he was John Cale, so who was I to question that? Gig itself was tremendous. Only downside was it being a sit down venue. That just seemed wrong to me.
 
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