I have a couple random questions after listening to XM Radio:

1. Why did bands record old concerts? I listen to the E Street Radio channel and they play the most random concert recordings (today's was St Paul 6/29/84). Next week's could be Dallas in the 90s or Milwaukee in the 70s. I get recording July 4th in Philly or NYE in SF or whatever, but did these guys and other similar bands record every show? And did they stick the tapes in storage for 20-35 years? Or were these sold, shared, played, etc before XM radio came along? I'm curious about who had the foresight to make the recording and save them for so long.

2. Did concerts used to be broadcast on the radio? I'll hear Springsteen shout out cities he's not in during the concert ("Want to say hey to those listening in Sacramento and Portland!" when he's in SF). I assume there was a way to pick them up on the radio, but that this isn't something done anymore.

To answer your first question, bands used to release live albums so they would record shows to be released later. Sometimes the live album might be one show or a mixture of shows. Some of the most popular Kiss albums were Alive, Alive II, Alive III, etc.

To answer part of your second question, I do believe shows were broadcast live on either the city they were playing in or other cities. The SRV album "In the Beginning" is a simulcast on KLBJ (I think) in Austin.

Gotcha. I've definitely owned/listened to live albums before, but I'm always surprised by the depth of recordings. Seems like some rock bands recorded every show.

Now you know that wouldn't stop them. But I agree; it's annoying.

How many even watch these recordings after the fact? Five percent?

DMB has recorded every show going back to the mid 90s. They release a umber of them as pet if their Live Trax series.

High school pals used to sneak in a cassette recorder to all concerts. You do see a bunch of 70/80s bootleg recordings floating around the webs.

I think they would record just about all the shows and either release the best one, or the best recordings from various shows.

Interesting that they had to sneak it in. I would have figured concerts in the 70s were a free for all.

AustinAg2K said:

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In would like to see bands start releasing live video of every concert. Then maybe people would stop trying to record the entire thing on their phones. Very annoying.

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Phish live streams all of their shows PPV and there are very few if any people on their phones.

Zombie Jon Snow said:

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Quinn said:

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Gotcha. I've definitely owned/listened to live albums before, but I'm always surprised by the depth of recordings. Seems like some rock bands recorded every show.

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Yes some bands recorded a lot of shows but probably not all of them. The first band I knew of that started recording every show was Pearl Jam and they did it to thwart bootleggers. They released every show for years in limited form but enough to counter bootlegs being profitable.

Live shows did used to be broadcast sometimes to other cities where they might not be touring.

AOR stations - album oriented rock stations - in the late 70s and early 80s were known for running full live shows from time to time as well as full studio albums without interruption. Me and my friends used to record some of those to cassettes as a cheap way to get more stuff to play in our library (we were poor).

The breadth of stuff on Sirius XM is impressive. The PJ station runs tons of that stuff they recorded. And Bruce too.

Honestly once you have the entire sound system for a concert - recording it is minimal additional effort. Recording many shows gave them a wide variety of acoustics to choose from for a live album.

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I think I have 40-50 of their concerts burned onto 2 cds in my car

Was bootlegging really that big of an issue? I'm sure there are diehards that enjoy it but I've never heard a bootleg recording of a concert that didn't sound terrible. What are these bootlegs even replacing? Would fans have bought these instead of official releases?

For bands like Metallica and Pearl Jam who sell recordings of every show it seems like its more an extra revenue stream than trying to stop people from recording their shows.

I can speak for Phish and say that the bootlegging made a huge impact on their fanbase and so they supported it to a big extent. My college boyfriend was a huge Phish fan and he had a box of bootlegs and would record one for free for anyone if they were looking for xyz-date show.

Back in the 90s the fanbase communicated via listserve and would share tapes. The band started releasing "bootlegs" recorded off the soundboard and sent through fan clubs to some of these bigger supporters to distribute, to support the effort, and popularity of the band exploded since they did not get much radio play.

In addition,their jamming made every show different and special, so for bands like Phish, Widespread, and DMB, bootlegging makes more sense than recording a band who mostly just plays their songs as is.

I have a bootleg of a Led Zeppelin show, but as previously stated the audio is terrible, so for me it is just cool.

Jasomania said:

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Was bootlegging really that big of an issue? I'm sure there are diehards that enjoy it but I've never heard a bootleg recording of a concert that didn't sound terrible. What are these bootlegs even replacing? Would fans have bought these instead of official releases?

For bands like Metallica and Pearl Jam who sell recordings of every show it seems like its more an extra revenue stream than trying to stop people from recording their shows.

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Certainly bootlegs did not have wide distribution because as you say they were terrible.

But internationally those bootlegs would be peddled as real releases and products in countries where there is little control.

The reason PJ was releasing theirs was to counter that - in order to protect consumers. By putting out every show in just a few printings and with almost zero production value (plain covers, no liner notes, etc.) they would counter any effort to rip off fans and PJ too.

In the case of PJ though it was not to stop FANS from recording shows - but to stop those companies from profiting off it. PJ actually embraced fans making personal audio recordings at shows for their own personal use.

As for whether it was a significant revenue stream I kind of doubt it. Something I read said PJ had made $13.5M in sales of over 500 bootleg concerts in its initial series. That's very little money considering the production costs for 500 different concerts. It's like $27,000 per release. I doubt it had a high profit margin.

Remember PJ made similar efforts to get around the high concert tickets prices by thwarting ticketmaster and their fees and selling their tickets directly at one time. It wasn't so PJ made more money but so fans paid less and not so much went to corporate entities.

Zombie Jon Snow said:

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As for whether it was a significant revenue stream I kind of doubt it. Something I read said PJ had made $13.5M in sales of over 500 bootleg concerts in its initial series. That's very little money considering the production costs for 500 different concerts. It's like $27,000 per release. I doubt it had a high profit margin.

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That seems like a really high cost to produce these releases. If it was video I could see that since someone would have to edit every single show but for audio essentially they are just recording directly from the soundboard and the only work to be done is someone cutting it into songs afterwards. When Metallica does this they are generally ready the next day for download. If you want a CD from Metallica they make them for you on demand so there's no real overhead cost involved.

Jasomania said:

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Zombie Jon Snow said:

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As for whether it was a significant revenue stream I kind of doubt it. Something I read said PJ had made $13.5M in sales of over 500 bootleg concerts in its initial series. That's very little money considering the production costs for 500 different concerts. It's like $27,000 per release. I doubt it had a high profit margin.

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That seems like a really high cost to produce these releases. If it was video I could see that since someone would have to edit every single show but for audio essentially they are just recording directly from the soundboard and the only work to be done is someone cutting it into songs afterwards. When Metallica does this they are generally ready the next day for download. If you want a CD from Metallica they make them for you on demand so there's no real overhead cost involved.

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I meant back when they started in the 90s - they were printing CD runs for all of them.

Recording not much cost, but printing was especially for small batch runs.

Now - yes releasing them on a streamable audio platform is next to nothing.

The original question was asking about OLD live material.

We got a bootleg from Pearl Jam's Vote for Change concert in STL.

My husband was convinced it was my scream when they played "State of Love and Trust" because that is my favorite song.

Seen them like over 30 times and every show is fresh and new. I think that is why their selling of the bootlegs did so well

I have copies of shows 3 nights in a row and they are totally different

Tanya 93 said:

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We got a bootleg from Pearl Jam's Vote for Change concert in STL.

My husband was convinced it was my scream when they played "State of Love and Trust" because that is my favorite song.

Seen them like over 30 times and every show is fresh and new. I think that is why their selling of the bootlegs did so well

I have copies of shows 3 nights in a row and they are totally different

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That's funny. I can hear my "woo" on a Roger Creager album that was recorded at Harry's back in the 00s.

Sometimes the Live Versions of songs are better.

Cheap Trick Live at Budokan is what made them a hit in the US. In fact I'm not sure the album was available to the public in the US but the DJs got a hold of it and boom.

Frampton Comes Alive was a monster.

Wings over America-Maybe I'm Amazed the live version was so much better than the studio one.

J Geils Band has incredible live albums.

Springsteen issued a triple live album around 86-87 that was really really good.

TONS of those Springsteen shows are from bootlegs. You'd be surprised how good some of them are (especially now when technology can 'clean' them up).

There are full on websites dedicated to trading/selling, etc. tapes of Springsteen shows.

A lot of those old live concerts were soundboard recordings, taken direct from the main mixing board. Some of those were unauthorized, but a lot of bands allowed it.

Also, the King Biscuit Flower Hour was a syndicated radio show that ran for about 30 years, beginning in the early '70s. The show broadcast concerts that were recorded live and then mixed and edited for broadcast. So you may be hearing some of those on Sirius XM.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_Biscuit_Flower_Hour

The Grateful Dead had sections where patrons recorded concerts. THis went on for literally decades. I have tapes that were recorded in the early '70s.

JCA1 said:

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Pretty sure it's because of Rerun bootlegging that Doobie Brothers show.

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I immediately thought of this episode of What's Happening when bootlegging discussion was started. Great that there are a bunch of oldies out there that remember. A dark haired Michael McDonald singing Takin It To The Streets was great.

safety guy said:

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JCA1 said:

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Pretty sure it's because of Rerun bootlegging that Doobie Brothers show.

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I immediately thought of this episode of What's Happening when bootlegging discussion was started. Great that there are a bunch of oldies out there that remember. A dark haired Michael McDonald singing Takin It To The Streets was great.

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I like to think that, at 46, I'm not a complete oldie yet. But I did spend many a summer day as a kid watching daytime reruns of What's Happening, Three's Company, Get Smart, etc.

There are also bands who only do certain things live or, conversely, never do certain things live. A couple of Black Crowes examples: for a while they took "She Talks to Angels" out of the live set list. A set where they played it live was a big deal. Also, covers of songs by the Flying Burrito Brothers or Little Feat or whomever weren't exactly rare, but they weren't appearing on any studio album.

Westwood one used to broadcast concerts too.