The Best Live Albums! EVER!!

Does anybody even care about ‘live’ albums anymore? Does anybody these days have the attention span to sit down for an evening and immerse themselves in  a concert experience simulation situation? I suppose the question is, does anybody have the attention span to sit down and just listen to an entire album,Period!? Well this post is assuming that there are those sorts of people left on earth.
In the past, live albums usually were produced for two reasons. That is, to fill in the gap while waiting for the next studio album. Or as a career or specific period overview of the ‘Best Of’ but presented in the novel ‘live album’ form. Sort of to remind everybody of their greatest hits and because of the crowd noises, remind everybody how famous they were(or still are).
But how ‘artistically’ important are these albums? Are they actually necessary? Some bands approach the stage with the idea that they must perform the songs just like they appear on the record, otherwise certain fans will think they’re no good live because it doesn’t sound like the album. “Unless you play that solo note for note just like the record, I’ll think that you suck ‘live’”.  For example-Supertramp-PARIS. I enjoy listening to that album, but is it essential listening? Is it a stand alone Supertramp album or is it just a greatest hits package with crowd noises? I enjoy Pink Floyd-PULSE and also DELICATE SOUND OF THUNDER, but they’re so close to the album versions that I consider them to be career retrospectives rather than a unique individual album.
Am I wrong to think this? Well, I’m writing the bloody article here and you’re not!
My personal preference is to think that live and studio are two different mediums and should be approached as such. I don’t think that a group that can reproduce the sound of their album on stage is accomplishing a really great thing(having to use recorded stuff and click tracks). I think that a group should hit the stage with just their instruments and GO! And if they play well and are also good entertainers, an audience shouldn’t feel cheated because it’s not like the record! In fact they should go home having been thoroughly entertained and satisfied.
So,,,The live albums I tend to recommend to people (who are remotely interested) are the ones that are NOT like the original record but are albums that can be considered an integral part of an artist’s catalog. An album that doesn’t sound just like a retrospective, but is a completely different album from anything else they have.
Here are six albums that I absolutely adore. Albums that capture an event(or a few events edited together into an entertaining collection).  There are many more that I will have missed but these ones I’ve arbitrarily chosen for this post!