is this the greatest live band of all time?

You've got to be kidding.

Yipes!

NO

I Geils is.

Pink Floyd was the best live band. 

I wanted to say J Geils.

Lets see, In one year at College we had The Who, The Dead, The Stones & Floyd.  How in the world could you pick just one? Impossible.

tooblue I thought of J Geils too but I think the original The Who band beat them.

No group live had the pure energy that J Geils Band had. Everyone and I mean everyone was on their feet dancing. Peter Wolf was great and Majic Dick was incredible on the harmonica. I would take J Geils for raw energy and Pink Floyd for the best all around concert due to their audio visual aspect of the concert. The Who in the original line up is a very close second. Whenever I saw The Who, watching Keith Moon hit the drums with such force was the best part. Peter Townshend’s windmill guitar playing got old, fast.

That’s good to know ‘cause I just got the cassette AND the CD of Full House J. Geils live. 🤗 

Whammer Jammer is a BLAZING song!!

You were very close. Only one letter off. 🤗

My brother ran into them accidentally at the airport a long time ago back in the early 70s and said they were tiny. I ran into Johnny Winter and his band 1969 at the airport and he was tiny too.

You're an interesting  guy, guitarsam.

The Who.
Auditorium Theater, July 4, 1970.
"Live at Leeds" - intermission - then "Tommy" - all of it.Keith Moon waving his hotel towel so the ladies knew where to find him.John Entwistle standing stoically stage right while making himself heard.Pete Townshend windmilling and playing like an articulate madman.
Roger Daltrey voice and tossing out bottles of wine and beer into the front rows from the band's on-stage galvanized cooler at the end of the show.It was close to midnight before it was all over. Pretty amazing.

Seen Hendrix, Stones, Floyd, Ike & Tina, Blind Faith, Zappa and many more. All good, just different.

But then, any good night at a neighborhood Chicago blues bar in the 70's with just about any of the locals could keep pace for energy and engagement.

All a matter of taste and timing. Sometimes you get a great night and sometimes a good night.

Someone I knew spoke highly of the Dictators, I just got their live album, F— ‘em if They Can’t Take a Joke on cassette, I have high hopes. 

The Dead 68-72 is to me the greatest live band of all time.

No contest -Springsteen. Nobody puts on a show like him. Stones are close.

Depends on your definition of a band. In different genres I would go with the Stones, Woody Hermann's many Herds and the Berlin Phil.

I kinda liked Derek & the Dominos...  Got to see them in concert over at SUNY Albany and then got a ride out to Syracuse Univ about a month later where they also had this guy Duane Allman join them that evening.  

J Geils Band is tops in my book. So much hard driving energy! Saw them 13 times and nobody ever, ever, sat down. Everyone was soaked in dancing sweat!

Yes Yes Yes I totally agree  I wish I knew this years ago.

And looney tunes is The favorite Tv  channel.

Van Halen. Metallica, Jeff buckley( rip), Peter Gabriel, widespread panic, king crimson, the police, the Grateful Dead. They all beat the stones and Floyd. Seen them all over 40 yrs.. The stones over the last 20 yrs are horrific in concert. 

The Allman Brothers live what more could you want.

I lived showbiz and Rock-a-Fire.  5th grade birthday there.   There’s a documentary on them and people are doing som neat things with the anamatronics.

No.

Glen Miller 

Not a band, but when I saw Jerry Lee Lewis I realised I was watching the greatest showman on earth, and possibly the greatest that has ever lived.

I'd have to give it to Captain Beefheart and the Magic Band.

I love the Beatles, but because most of their tunes were the product of an amazing amount of manipulations and added instruments they really couldn’t tour.
So my vote has to go to Pink Floyd.

JD 

Jethro Tull
Shania Twain

I feel like half the people who answered think they are gonna see the Beatles live and gave up before the clip actually started. I know I almost did. THAT SAID,
rock a fire explosion had my attention for a good 20 mins. That was pretty awesome dude. 

I saw Pink Floyd kick off tour of Dark Side of the moon,......amazing! Also liked Jethrol Tulls Thick as a Brick concert. David Bowe was great! And the Stones Voodoo lounge tour also stands out
Oh almost forgot The Moody Blues

The best show I ever saw was Mellencamp at Market Square Arena for the Lonesome Jubilee tour. The energy on stage and in the hometown crowd was amazing! We even taped the video for Check it Out that night. I get goosebumps thinking about it now. Lisa Germano on fiddle was first rate awesome!

The first, original U2 Joshua Tree tour. Second was Jimmy Buffet. Sting outdoors at Chastain Park, ATL. Korn, for the raw energy!!

Dead, Stones, Cream, Tull, Steeleye Span, The Band, and Kentucky Headhunters 

Oh, I wish I had tickets to the Led Zeppelin reunion at the O2 in the UK, Jason Bonham on drums, WOW! I heard tickets were selling north of £30,000.00 a ticket! 

Sly and The Family Stone, when Sylvester was sober that is.
The only band that made Miles Davis completely change his style of playing.

The JB's live, now that was a show.

I've seen lots and lots of top notch musical acts over the years, from Tony Bennett to Led Zeppelin to Miles Davis to David Bowie to Jimi Hendrix to Dave Brubeck to Bob Marley to the Vienna Philharmonic.  The greatest I've ever seen?  A tie between Herbert von Karajan leading the Berlin Philharmonic and Bruce Springsteen leading the E Street Band.

1995 Wynton Marsalis septet

Weird Al Yankovic

...sorry, hoping to garner a few smiles during this Covid craziness

So many great bands, hard to pick best the concert, but undoubtedly the best (non) entrance was Pink Floyd. Saw them at the Cleveland Municipal Stadium, late 70’s I think. Had four banks of speakers, the main stage and the three other points. The intro music stopped and, softly at first, the sound of a jet airplane began moving circularly from speaker bank to speaker bank, getting progressively louder. Suddenly the sound stopped for a couple of seconds only to suddenly start again super loud at the main bank of speakers, simultaneously their own full size jet, complete with the pig painted on the tail section, flew extremely low over the stadium from the direction of the stage toward the opposite end. Of course, nobody (ok, few) saw them come onstage and immediately start playing that day, as was their rep at the time.

The “World Series of Rock” shows there were also amazing, Trickster, ELO, Foreigner, and Journey on July 15th, 1978, all in one event, was right up there with the best I’ve seen.

https://rockandrollroadmap.com/places/where-they-played/other-rock-music-venues/cleveland-stadium-ho...

Exile on Main Street Stones Tour June 1972 Los Angeles
Midnight Oil Blue Sky Mining Tour June 1990 Irvine CA
The Who December 1971 Long Beach CA
Springsteen Oct 2007 Madison Square Garden The Magic album tour
U2 Joshua Tree Tour Los Angeles April 1987
I didn’t attend, but one of the greatest Live albums/recordings is Rock n Roll Animal by Lou Reed...the 6 minute intro then directly into Sweet Jane is sublime.

Sam here again and the reason i bring up live performances is the fact that a recording of a live performance does not effect you like the actual live performance does and what if you used frequencies coming from the speakers to harmonize the music with the audience brains creating an experience where everyones brains including the band would align to the same single frequency creating a supernatural connection that would forever change the lives of those in attendence.