Live! Bootleg is a double live album by American hard rock band Aerosmith, released in October 1978. While most of the performances were drawn from concerts in 1977 and 1978, I Ain’t Got You and Mother Popcorn were taken from a radio broadcast of a Boston performance on March 20, 1973. In the band memoir Walk this Way, guitarist Joe Perry recalls, “I didn’t want to do a live album at the time because there were so many perfect live albums coming out, all doctored and fixed and overdubbed. Big deal. Double live album – ‘standard of the industry’. I felt like we had to avoid that and do a real live album like Live At Leeds or Get Yer Ya Ya’s Out or that old Kinks album (Live At Kelvin Hall).“
Whatever the band were going for in terms of realness and authenticity with this album, they certainly succeeded! Live! Bootleg captures the high energy of the band in this no-frills, high-octane rock’n’roll performance. All the members here are on fire, the sound is raw, primal yet crisp and the songs crackle with some much more energy than their studio counterparts and hats off to their blistering version of The Beatles Come Together.
It’s pretty much a perfect live album, for me: excellent performances, an engaged crowd and no filler of any sort. Other than the sound quality of the early ’73 performances (the band were going for a raw, bootleg feel) it’s a damn seemless album. I always wondered why Aerosmith were a lauded live act, and this album is a great document of just why they were.
No hesitation in giving this a 10 and would definitely recommend and re-listen to this several times over and so should you.
Up next, we have some dromedary japes but until then TTFN.
La Barba Azul 