What are the best live acts?



I’m not asking you to list your favorite concerts. I think that there is another thread for that. Rather, we shouldn’t judge pop bands solely on the basis of their recorded music. Some bands are simply better on stage than they are in the recording studio. I’ll cite the following for their consistent ability to put on a great live show.

1. The Cramps
2. The Ramones
3. Toots Hibbert (touring as Toots and the Maytals, even though Toots fired the original Maytals some time ago)
4. GWAR
5. The UK Subs (crap music, brilliant live show)
6. AC-DC (when Bon Scott was their front man)
7. The Meat Puppets
8. Tom Waits
9. The Anti-Nowhere League
10. Van Halen (w/ David Lee Roth: I hate their music, but I saw them twice, and had a rocking good time!)
11. Iggy Pop
12. Ted Nugent (This man is the redneck Iggy Pop)
13. Joe Ely
14. The Butthole Surfers
15. The Clash
16. The Mentors
17. Nig Heist
18. Emmy Lou Harris
tweakgeek
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.
Zaikesman,
I have heard a lot of bands, virtually all in 60's & early 70's when it was $3.50 to hear your favorite groups (now superstars) in a crowd of about 150 people. But I never heard the band that played what has been and always will be my single favorite song, which is the only song I liked by the group. I really envy you having heard ? Mark and the Mysterians. I know its just another of a million songs by a million artists, but I'd die to hear 96 Tears live.
George
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.
Having heard hundreds of groups, and not remembering a lot of them for good reasons, the groups that stand out for show or music are:

Pink Floyd
Rolling Stones
Kiss (70s vintage)
Kansas (unbelievably tight musically)
John Cougar Mellencamp (just flat out fun)
Genesis (70s vintage)
Leonard Skynard
GWAR (in a league of their own)
Any Clapton
Jethro Tull
Who (sad)
B52s

Yeah, these are older rock groups. My tastes have mellowed, and I could add a lot of other groups, but the above groups were a lot of fun, and they really could get the crowd going. The groups were not listed in numeric order except for the first group. Pink Floyd is unbelievable in concert, but then again, you will never see a group as shocking as GWAR!