Eight 1990s live albums that badly fail to capture the magic
- If you like live music albums you want to share in the concert experience.
- To feel and relive the atmosphere and the magic of the gig.
- These eight albums fail to do so and fall flat.
By StevieMac
Anthrax - Live: The Island Years
When an artist is pretty open about not liking one of his own band’s albums and even telling fans not to buy it, it's usually for good reason. It’s a stinker alert!
That though was the view of guitarist Scott Ian about this 1994 live release from Anthrax. I say from the band, but they had little to do with it. The album was made up of a couple of old recordings by their record label to fulfill a contract for another album with Island Records. Part was the soundtrack to a home video, Live Noize, from 1991, the last few songs came from a college radio show recording in 1992.
The album is an odd mix of content using songs with a too heavy focus on collaborations between the band rather than on their top numbers. It’s also slightly odd in that the recordings used had Joey Belladonna on vocals, but he had left the band two years earlier, in 1992. John Bush then took over but isn’t on this release.
On the plus side, there weren’t any other live albums for Anthrax, this was their first. On the downside, the sound on it isn’t brilliant and it’s all a bit tame for a band like Anthrax. Scott Ian called it right, one to give a miss to.
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