10 Greatest Live Albums In Rock Music History
2. Jerry Lee Lewis - Live at the Star Club, Hamburg
Jerry Lee Lewis is one of the last rock ‘n’ rollers, an 86 year old who was improbably still touring up until a few years ago. With his vintage and grandfatherly looks, you could be forgiven for considering him a sweet old nostalgia act.
How wrong you’d be. Live At The Star Club is one of the most raucous and aggressive nights of music ever put down on record. Lewis opens with "Mean Woman Blues"; by two bars in he’s foregone standard piano playing in favour of battering the keys as hard as he can while caterwauling to the rapt audience.
They didn’t call him The Killer for nothing; that’s exactly what it sounds like he’s trying to do to his instrument, turning Ray Charles# “What’d I Say” into a sprawling epic and his own hits like “Whole Lotta Shakin’ Goin’ On” into sheer chaos. Lewis would wallop the keys with his feet, kick the stool across the stage, and sometimes - per Chuck Berry - literally light the thing on fire.
He’s a marvellously malevolent presence, occasionally breaking off to lead the crowd in a sinister “Jerry, Jerry” chant, but on the piano he remains without compare. Lewis is accompanied by three musicians, but with the sheer force of his pounding, he generates an aural army.