What are the best live acts?

Re The Stones: I am of the opinion that their live shows for the past close to 20 years now have been prefunctory money-extracting operations of the most hollow sort. Pay your hundreds, see the legends. True, they do empty professionalism as well or better than anybody - and of course they have a huge advantage in material over the competition - but that's still all it is.

Duane: The Mentors were about a hundred times better live than they were on record!

Random thoughts, very incomplete:
Highest, most concentrated live energy ever released on a stage: The Bad Brains, circa late 70's - early 80's.

Bands I most wish I'd seen live: MC5, New York Dolls, Jimi Hendrix Experience, the original James Brown revue, and of course, The Beatles.

Bands I danced the most to: C.J. Chenier and his Red Hot Louisiana Band, Trouble Funk.

Band that meant the most to me to see live (many times): The Replacements.

For a good time, bands you should see live the next time they come to your town: The Dictators, The Flaming Lips, NRBQ, The Soft Boys (back from the grave), Sloan, The Fleshtones, The Swingin' Neckbreakers, Oxes.

Tweakgeek, speaking of Otis Clay, did you catch the TV news feature (can't remember if was network or cable) last week about the resurrected career of Howard Tate?

Jetter, there is a live CD from that show, released on Norton I believe. It actually does a good job of catching the band's live sound, but the production apparently didn't feature any mic's facing the crowd (or whoever mixed it didn't bring the applause up between songs), so it sounds strangely as if they're playing to a virtually empty small club, when in reality the packed crowd of about 300 just went nuts the whole time. (Nice story: The Lyres played on that bill, and mainman (Monoman) Jeff Connolly plays a vintage Vox Continental organ just like was used by ? & The Mysterians back in the day. The group was the all original linup, but they only had some Korg synth or something with them, and were able to borrow the Vox for the show, which made everything right with the world.) They actually managed to tour together for a couple of years there after that Cavestomp show, and I saw them again twice more here in DC, but they seem not to have been active for the past two years now. Rudy Martinez (Question Mark) puts on a hell of a show - he's like the forgotten Latino James Brown; the orange cape and tight pants, with of course his trademark shades and long black hair, but he's quite a bit trimmer at a few years younger, so his moves are still slick.

OK, how 'bout this? Some bands I saw resurrected at the Cavestomp shows in NYC '97 - '01 (RIP) that I never imagined I'd get a chance to see in my lifetime:

The Pretty Things
? & The Mysterians
The Litter
Barry & The Remains
The Gants
The Troggs
Sky Saxon (The Seeds)
Mark Lindsey (The Raiders)
The Blues Magoos
The Creation
The Electric Prunes
The Beau Brummels
The Monks
The Zombies
The Standells
The Chocolate Watch Band
Richard & The Young Lions
Sean Boniwell's Music Machine
Downliners Sect
The Third Bardo
Syndicate of Sound
...and those were just the gen-u-wine '60's bands...

Hope I haven't left out anybody (except for a band calling themselves The Shadows of Knight who didn't sound like it, and deserved to be), but these shows were truly an embarrasment of riches from out of the mists of time, real rock'n'roll-wise. Ya'll kiddies shoulda been there.