Best Bootleg

John Elway in Super Bowl XXXII. On third down, Elway ran a bootleg to the right and easily scored on the first play of the second quarter. The score gave the Broncos their first lead, 14-7, on the way to the title.

 

ok, fenian, i'll keep my enthusiasm for dead shows to a minimum but anything from the dead, circa may 1977, is pretty strong.

since i have somewhere in the neighborhood of 300 live shows, here are few of my faves:
john prine, july 13, 1978, my father's place, rosyln, n.y.
seldom scene, march 1, 1973, lisner auditorium, DC
willie nelson, sept. 3, 1993
jerry garcia band, march 3, 1980, san Francisco
the stanley brothers (ralph and carter), sept. 21, 1962, berkley, calif.
hot rize, july 30, 1988, midsummer bluegrass festival, grass valley, calif.
talking heads, aug. 21, forest hills tennis stadium, new york (includes a killer version of 'this must be the place')

a lot of mine are bluegrass shows, because 1) i dig the music and 2) at bluegrass festivals throughout time, bands didn't have their banjo strings in bunch because someone was taping the show.

 

Wasn't there but have a boot of that show, Jim. Also the first time he did My City of Ruins

 

There seem to be a lot of Talking Heads boots around. Caught me by surprise.

HammerP - I'm telling you, every sing Exile cut on this thing is extraordinary. There's also a performance of "Heartbreaker," which leads me to believe that the set was probably recorded in '76 or '77.
In re: CentralI, well, goddamn, it took you guys long enough.

 

Technically, live Dead tapes aren't bootlegs since they allowed taping and had tapers' sections at their shows.

 

There's a White Stripes in Glastonbury walking around that ain't half bad. As for PJ, someone recorded the first show of theirs I ever saw (before they released every show) and it's a treasure.

 

It's hip hop, but Danger Mouse's "The Grey Album" and Q-Unit's greatest hits are pretty good.

Here's a link (I've posted it before) to Q-Unit - a mix of Queen's greatest hits album and 50 Cent/G-Unit/Game songs. You can click and listen for free if you scroll down a bit.
http://www.q-unit.net/

 

Stones - Brussels Affair (1973)
Springsteen - Passaic Nights (1978)

 

pj 04-03-94 atlanta
interpol 11-07-02 Rennes, France
the cars universal amph, studio city ca, 09-05-79
radiohead hammerstein 12-19-97

 

Some beauties:
U2, Paradise, Boston, '83 (including stuff they probably haven't played since)
Elvis Costello, Toronto, '78 (with guest shot from Nick Lowe)
Replacements, final show, July 4, 1991 in Chicago (sloppy but fun. For the record, the final song was "Hootananny," with the roadies replacing band members on stage one by one).
Cramps, somewhere in Switzerland, '86 (if you've ever heard Lux take apart "Lonesome Town"...)

 

My favorite actual bootleg is Elvis Costello "Riot Act 83," recorded in London on the tour for "Punch The Clock" when he had a horn section and backup singers (Afrodisiac, who sang backup for every British band at some point in the early 80s).

I've got a ton of live shows I've downloaded from the net, so they aren't true bootlegs.  The best may be a Joe Jackson show where he does covers of "You Can't Be Too Strong" by Graham Parker (one of my favorite songs, and JJ's cover is better than the original) and "Reelin' In The Years" by Steely Dan.

 

Wilco, a double disk from a 2002 Portland show. The timeline chick sent it to me in exchange for a set list I had grabbed at another show.
It had a shoutout from Tweedy to the timeline chick, so it was the bootleg she sent everyone, I guess.