amazing live videos of John Prine, Cardiacs, Yellow Magic Orchestra & more to watch while every show is cancelled
Basically no shows are happening due to the coronavirus outbreak (though some artists are doing livestreams instead), but if you’re already jonesing to see a show, or just need a brief distraction from the insanity of the world right now, thankfully there’s YouTube which has an amazing array of live footage from throughout the history of pop music, from clips from concert films, TV performances and other pro-shot footage, to tons of fan-shot video from shows. If you’re looking for a place to start, we’ve been picking some of our favorites. Here are five more:
John Prine @ Strawberry Music Festival 1986
John Prine's way with a rhyme and a melody, his good humor, empathy and easygoing charm made for the kind of songs where you remember lines the first time you hear them. That made him great for festivals where could win over a crowd quick. John had Yosemite's Strawberry Festival in the palm of his hand in 1986, with a set that includes classics like "Sam Stone," "Illegal Smile," "Hello in There," "Spanish Pipe Dream," and "Paradise." We miss ya, John. [Bill Pearis]
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Cardiacs @ Salisbury Arts Centre - 6/30/1990
In this daily roundup of live videos, we recently turned your attention towards Napalm Death's show at Salisbury Arts Centre on June 30, 1990, which was turned into the live album/film Live Corruption, and here's video of the band Napalm Death were sharing the bill with that night, prog/art punk weirdos Cardiacs, whose set was turned into the live album/film All That Glitters Is a Mares Nest. Cardiacs, one of the craziest bands of all time and an influence on Radiohead, Blur, Faith No More, Tool, Porcupine Tree, and more, were in typically manic form all night, looking and sounding totally odd and totally amazing. As nuts as this band already was in the studio, they might've been even more so on stage. [Andrew Sacher]
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Adolescents in Santa Barbara - 3/5/1982
There isn't much footage of legendary punks Adolescents in their early '80s prime, so as grainy as this video may be (and, according to a couple commenters, this was shot when Curtis "Sparky" McCracken briefly replaced Tony Cadena on vocals), it's still a treat to get this taste of what the Adolescents were like at the time. This appears to have been shot in Santa Barbara on March 5, 1982 (the day John Belushi died, as the band mentions on stage) at a show that also included Black Flag, Ch3, and Overkill, and it was right around the time the classic lineup was disbanding (they played "Yur 2 Late," which became a solo song for guitarist Rikk Agnew after he left). They also played a handful of songs from their now-classic 1981 self-titled debut, and they ripped throughout the whole set. [Andrew Sacher]
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Yellow Magic Orchestra @ Greek Theatre, Los Angeles - 8/4/1979
This video features one of Yellow Magic Orchestra’s debut American performances in support of the San Franciscan band The Tubes. But opening act doesn’t quite capture the apparent skill and vision of the groundbreaking band here. The footage itself is slickly edited, with plenty of close-ups that make a band mostly tethered to hulking keyboards seem dynamic beyond their spritely synth lines. (Gear-heads should enjoy sorting out what kind of vintage synthesizers the band’s using.) While Haruomi Hosono, Ryuichi Sakamoto, and Yukihiro Takahashi are legendary in their own right, this incarnation of their live band featured talent from other rising electronic pop artists at the time, most notably pianist Akiko Yano and Hideki Matsutake on the modular rig, who programmed synths on the band’s albums and created solo work under the name Logic System. The band’s label at the time, Alfa Records, produced the video, and is now seen along with its subsidiary Yen Records as one of the most important Japanese technopop labels of the '70s and '80s. In 1979, this set and its performers offered American audiences a bracing glimpse at the innovation happening throughout Japanese popular music, catching them off-guard in the best possible sense. [Andrew Marinaccio]
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Sleater-Kinney @ CBGB, May 15 1997
Just over a month after the release of their third LP, Dig Me Out, Sleater-Kinney's tour supporting the album hit NYC for a show at CBGB. They've long been an exciting live band and they sound incredibly vital and urgent here, tearing through tracks from their first few albums and playing an early version of "One Song for You" before The Hot Rock came out in 1999. [Amanda Hatfield]
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For more of our favorite live videos, head here.