Live Music

This post was inspired by two things:
1) I'm working on Part Tres of my annual music roundup, all about my favorite concerts this year.
2) Something I saw on eMusic was entitled "The Memphis Blues Again", and that phrase always reminds me of the Dylan song "Stuck Inside Of Mobile With The Memphis Blues Again" and my favorite recording of that song, from the live Dylan album Hard Rain.

So I fired up iTunes and listened to Hard Rain again. It's a great live album - I bought it at the CD World in Parsippany years ago (when there was a CD World in Parsippany). They were playing it in the store and I asked who it was (n00b). I stood about 2 more songs, the decided to buy it. They didn't have any more copies of it (always a smart marketing technique, play music you don't have to sell), so I ended up buying the copy they were playing as a used CD. It was my first Dylan purchase (I know, shame on me), but as I collected more Dylan, I was amazed at how different the arrangements were in the live show than his studio versions. (I was only slightly less amazed that the song "Hard Rain" does not appear on the live album Hard Rain.) As I've listened to more music, I'm finding this was a common practice back in the day, re-arranging music for live shows in order to reinvigorate the artist and the song. Joe Cocker's Mad Dogs and Englishmen is another excellent example. (Also - Sinatra's Sinatra in Paris.)

Are there any bands that still do this? (Jam bands don't count. I am generally anti-jam band. Just continuing the same riff and adding some instrumental solos does not qualify as re-interpretation.) The last live recording that I've heard that offered new takes on the tracks from the album that the tour supports was Jill Scott's fantastic Experience 826+ from 2001. It's a great set with a small jazz combo and a couple of backup vocalists. Really incredible musicianship and energy.

Anybody else have a story about a live band or live recording that ventures far away from the studio source material? Examples of failures and successes are welcomed and encouraged.