10 Best Live Rock Bands
When the live stage becomes musical church.
There are many cases where bands thrive when they're in the studio making some of the most finely crafted tunes ever made. The art of peddling away at your sound to get a flawless masterpiece is always a commendable undertaking. However, what separates the technicians from the professional musicians is how you translate that studio recording onto the live stage.
As a performer, you realize very quickly that a show means so much more than just perfectly playing the song as it's heard on the record. Throughout each song, each respective band member has to put their heart into their performance as they bear their soul before the audience.
In a way, putting together a full set is like building a self-contained album experience every night. Sure, you may not need to slave over a guitar part for hours, but there's a shared artistic goal of taking the listener on a journey through the power of your music.
These acts have even taken the live performance once step further as they turn their performances into modern spectacles that are as cathartic for the audience as it is for the artist. By seeing these performances, music can go from catchy tunes to something transcendent.
10. Pearl Jam
Pearl Jam's power in their early years has been well-documented. From their epic performance at PinkPop to their raucous early gigs, the Seattle rockers used shows as a musical release for themselves, where everyone was expected to lose their mind.
The culmination of these early gigs would come during a guitar break or interlude where Eddie Vedder would begin climbing into the rafters and hanging 40 feet above the stage (without a net!) This was reflected in their live video for "Alive" where Vedder ends up falling into the crowd at the song's climax.
Even with less death-defying stage habits in recent years, the band is able to mix things up with every show they play. Instead of the standard way of building a well-balanced collection of songs, Pearl Jam's setlist changes with almost every gig as they create the song order based on the city they're playing in. This makes the entire show feel much more communal, as the band approaches every stellar performance like a freewheeling jam session. At their best moments, the audience becomes the unofficial sixth member as they emotionally react to the sounds coming from the stage. By wearing their heart on their sleeve, Pearl Jam have turned in their best performances on the road.