Ten brilliant live albums from the 1980s

Pink Floyd - Delicate Sound Of Thunder

This live set from Pink Floyd followed the release of their 1987 album A Momentary Lapse Of Reason. That album was particularly significant as it marked the departure of Roger Waters from the band. Along with a return to more typical Pink Floyd-sounding music. Having got that sound back, the fans were keen to see the band, as it was now with Nick Mason, David Gilmour, and Richard Wright, live on stage with their amazing visual shows.

The album is an excellent extract from five of those shows, recorded in New York in August 1988 and released remarkably quickly a few months later in November 1988. That ties in with the claim of there being no studio overdubbing of the concert recordings, although some minor adjustments were still made to some vocals and an acoustic guitar was added by Gilmour to “Comfortably Numb." It's still pretty minimal by the band's standards. 

The band are very faithful to the old favourites, they still sound as good and familiar as ever, the only difference being that it’s Gilmour’s voice to the fore, with Waters absent. That and the inclusion of several session musicians to help build the live sound fully. Fans lapped it up with Delicate Sound Of Thunder charting well at number 11 on the Billboard 200 and claiming US triple platinum ranking. 

Waters, though, became even more of an ex-fan and past member with regular swipes calling the new albums forgeries. This album may have been eclipsed and subsequently overshadowed by the 1995 live release Pulse, but it’s well worth a revisit as a great set of music as the band evolved post-Waters. Whether Roger likes that or not.

That's the end of this list of ten more amazing live albums from the 1980s. There’s a link above if you want to see the previous ten albums listed. If there’s a comments function where you see this article, do let us know any live 1980s favorites you have that aren't on the two lists. 

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