Oooohhhhh, what NOW Clash?

Beeverteeth, could you clarify who you meant by "they"? When you first said it, I thought you meant Phish. Your latest post makes me think you meant The Dead.

As a huge Dead Head, I have to say this is a terrible choice for a video as a response.

First off, Morning Dew is a cover, and secondly, this is from the first year that the GD covered it. Maybe if you had posted a video from a '74 version or something, it would have been somewhat acceptable, but it's still a cover.

I did mean The Grateful Dead. And so what if that video is a cover? Covering songs in the band's specific style is a trademark of jam bands. That's just one of the many things The Grateful Dead originated.

Also still no mention of The Flaming Lips on this list?

Thanks for clarifying. Your post seemed to be in response to what I said, but my only point was that I thought it was right that an artist varying his playlist from night to night isn't part of the criteria, because that only matters if an artist has lots of fans that see them more than one night in a row, and for more than half of the artists on the list, that wouldn't be the case.

You posted morning Morning Dew in response to this:




But to strengthen your argument regarding evolution of songs from their studio versions, why would you post a video of a cover (yes, I know that there is a studio version of MD, but still, why not pick an original?)

True, but it's an important part of The Grateful Dead as a live act, as they pioneered so much. They were the first band to do really long extended jams on studio material, the first to have fans follow them all over the place, the first to do extended covers and completely different setlists every night, first to encourage fans to trade bootleg tapes of their shows, etc. They are essentially THE live band, defining their career entirely on the basis of their live performances and cult following that developed because of it.

Also, here's one of their own songs played live in 1967:

There's no "what now". I just wanted to post a reminder that, in addition to all their other live credentials, The Who were even jamming pretty dang early, too.

They jammed, but that doesn't make them a jam band. There's a difference between doing one or two extended versions of songs and making every single one of your concerts extended songs with different arrangements only.

Thin lizzy?
Rainbow ? they had a great show, the giant rainbow alone is enough to get them a spot

Daft punk ?

Rammstein ?

these bands also have great shows

1. James Brown
2. Elvis Presley
3. The Who
4. Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band

BS and the E didn't contribute nearly as much to the live rock show as the other three, and they certainly aren't sufficiently more highly regarded as live performers than the other three to overcome that.

I think the Who's status as a live band is a bit overrated, maybe I haven't seen them enough live, but there are other artists that
are great and doesn't have this status, funkadelic for example, I think there live shows add more to the music then the who's shows do, again only my opinion...

But they deserve to be in top 3 as you said,