The War On Drugs’ Adam Granduciel lists his all-time favourite live albums
Most guitar heads (specifically ‘Drugheads’) who have seen The War On Drugs live in concert over the past decade could attest to the experience feeling transcendental, or the nearest thing to it.
It was that energy, aura, and even sense of communion that Adam Granduciel set out to harness with the Philadelphian rockers’ second live offering, Live Drugs Again. “It’s like, ‘I know something was happening on stage that night, so let’s just start there’,” Adam says from his kitchen in Los Angeles, reaping the rewards of being back home having recently completed a co-headline tour with The National.
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A salient starting point for a live album certainly, given the extensive amount of recordings of their setlists on personal hard-drives that he had to sift through after several years on the road. Some might argue however, that with the saturation of fan’s video recordings online nowadays, releasing a live album might seem moot. Not to Granduciel, who prioritised the album’s feel over straightforward documentation, reclaiming agency over how his fans re-live the band in concert.
Live Drugs Again is a vividly hued sonic collage from a myriad of recordings during The War On Drugs’ tour in support of their 2021 album, I Don’t Live Here Anymore. For a musician whose reputation for painstaking fastidiousness in the studio precedes him, the album enforces the notion that each band member’s contributions – including newest recruit in multi-instrumentalist Eliza Hardy Jones – and their cohesion is, more so than ever, crucial for Granduciel’s vision to flourish on stage each night. Once again, they’ve reiterated their stance as a seminal guitar band.
Archiving a particularly unique era in a musician’s lifespan, live albums can emphasise their evolution and even hint at the next juncture in their careers. As history tells us, they can even be vital entries into an artist’s canon. Besides, “it’s nice to have something that myself and the band can stand behind, to remember this era of the band,” Adam adds, hence the band releasing two live albums to date. “Playing live, it’s the greatest thing. It’s the greatest part of creating music, really. Those seventy minutes we had every night are the most important part of the day. Getting to walk up to my stupid rig and just plug it in every day, and crank it up with a bass player and a drummer next to you. The worlds we build. It’s the greatest.”
With the recent release of The War On Drugs’ second live album, Adam Granduciel is something of an authority on the matter. For Guitar.com, he picks his all-time greatest live albums, discussing their impact on his own playing style and life in music.
The War On Drugs performing live. Image: Dominic East
1. Jimi Hendrix – Band Of Gypsys (1970)
“I mean, they’re in no particular order, obviously. But it’s quintessential: Band Of Gypsys. My trajectory with Hendrix in high school was ‘the greatest hits’, then worked my way back to the records. Then when I was a little older, I heard Band Of Gypsys… Once you’ve played guitar for a couple of years, you’re completely blown away by the whole thing. The mastery. It has Machine Gun on there. A classic. It’s the one I always come back to.
“I heard it as a senior in high school. I have a brother who’s three years older, so everything trickled down through him. We shared a room. We shared a room forever. Foxy Lady is the first Jimi song I heard, then worked my way up from there. Four or five years later, I heard Band Of Gypsys. I’m like ‘oh, it’s a different band?’ But it was a completely different side of Jimi.”
2. The Allman Brothers Band – Live At Fillmore East (1971)
“I grew up in Massachusetts, and the Allman Brothers were a staple every summer. This record showcased Duane Allman. He was such a prodigy. He’d only been playing slide for a couple of years by this point. It also introduced me to Tom Dowd, who produced the record. There was this great documentary about Tom Dowd. But it reminds me of how these bands in 1970 and 1971 wanted to showcase their live show, but they’d take it back to the studio to work on. The same with Live/Dead, you know. I appreciate now that I’m older and have a band of my own, that live experience.
“Growing up as a guitar player, I had this friend Alex who was a huge Allman Brothers fan. A great guitar player, he knew every lick to this record, every progression, every song. So I’d just play rhythm behind him on acoustic to [In Memory Of] Elizabeth Reed, to Stormy Monday. I still put this on all the time, especially on tour. When I’m waiting for the bus at 00:30, I’ll put on some Allman Brothers, Live At Fillmore East specifically. It reminds me of being young, the summer. It’s just some of the best guitar playing. Ever.”
Adam Granduciel performing live. Image: Press
3. The Velvet Underground – Bootleg Series Volume 1: The Quine Tapes (2001)
“The Quine Tapes, that Bob Quine put together: it sounds insane. So primal. That’s kind of what it sounds like when you start a band with your friends. That’s what it sounds and feels like. I have a lot of memories from Philly, years ago, listening to it constantly. A record like that is inspiring at different stages of your career. I haven’t listened to it in… maybe a bit. But it was definitely the first thing that came to mind when I thought about my favourite live albums. It’s just The Velvet Underground doing their thing. It sounds insane.
“It’s basically Bob Quine, who was their number one fan – and would later play with Lou, with the New York guitar scene, with Richard Hell – recorded it and curated it later when it was released. It was recorded in a high school gymnasium, and doesn’t sound crystal clear or anything, but it’s everything you want and expect from The Velvet Underground. At times it’s pretty cavernous, but it’s incredible. I’m Waiting For The Man is on there, and Foggy Notion, the classic 25-minute Sister Ray, White Light/White Heat. It’s amazing.”
4. Neil Young and Crazy Horse – Live Rust (1978)
“It’s another one that’s trickled down from my brother, but it opened the door. He had that record and Harvest Moon at the same time, so took both of those. Those two records were more than ten years apart, but to hear both sides, it really opened up my eyes to Neil. There’s all the acoustic stuff on there, Sugar Mountain. Live Rust though, I must’ve bought that record about ten times over the course of my life. With Crazy Horse, on Powderfinger for instance, that recording became the definitive version of the song. I love that with live records. Same with Led Zeppelin’s BBC Sessions, some of those songs to me are the version. You can genuinely hear how much life is injected into every little nuance. On Live Rust, Like A Hurricane obviously, Cortez The Killer, Sedan Delivery, I love all that shit.
“The same thing with all these records, they all make you want to be in a band in different ways. But with Live Rust, it’s Neil performing at his peak. It’s also when he had the microphone built into his harmonica so he could walk around the stage. He was just a tweak ahead of everyone else. I’ve seen Old Black, once. We did a thing with Neil, so I saw it in his vault, in his guitar stand. That thing’s got some miles on it. I saw that and the White Falcon. The door opened on Neil Young with Live Rust, but it’s still wide open.”
Image: Press
5. Sonic Youth – Live In Brooklyn 2011 (2023)
“I was listening to this album just last week. From the Brooklyn [Williamsburg Waterfront] show in 2011. I actually played that show, when I was in Kurt Vile’s band. We opened the show, so I remember watching them from the side of the stage. I’d seen them twice within a couple of years, at All Tomorrow’s Parties a year before. They were just so good. This was their last US performance, in 2011. Oh man, I forgot they were at the top of their game in 2009 to 2011. They played Psychic Hearts from Thurston’s first solo record, which is really really good. It’s an amazing setlist. But I didn’t actually remember any of it. I remembered Psychic Hearts, and maybe one or two of the tracks. So, when I saw the album was coming out I thought ‘Err, didn’t we play that show?’
“It was just such a cool thing to be part of, in the peripheral. Your memory is always a little different, and I was on the stage so wasn’t hearing everything that clear. It’s cool to hear what Lee [Ranaldo] was doing on the other side of the stage – and he was on fire that night. The couple of times I saw them in that period, they were just undeniable. Really cool. It’s cool to have that out in the world, and to be able to relive it.”
Image: Press
6. Bob Dylan – The Bootleg Series Vol. 4: Bob Dylan Live 1966, The “Royal Albert Hall” Concert (1998)
“I had some various Dylan picks on this list. I’ve always loved the Royal Albert Hall 1966 album, or ‘Manchester Free Trade’ show or whatever you want to call it [the original bootleg was erroneously claimed to be from the Royal Albert Hall, but was actually recorded at the Manchester Free Trade Hall – Ed]. The first side’s acoustic, the second side’s with the band. 2000, or 2001, I first heard it. I was so obsessed. When you’re trying to start writing songs and performing them, and you hear this thing. I was a similar age [to Bob Dylan]. It was just endlessly inspiring. I love the first acoustic side, he’s really living the minutiae of those songs, and is so dominant in his crazy kind of way. Then the second side with the band. I had to include this record, as it was such a turning point for me, personally. Even just the way he’s playing the acoustic guitar, it’s so thrashy. The drop tuning is something I started using after hearing this, the low C tuning, and the E string tuned to C. Just his delivery in these recordings is so inspiring.
“I also wanted to include Hard Rain and [Bob Dylan Live at] Budokan, as they’re showing this guy who’s constantly evolving. He’s the master of his own material. Writing new words to songs that are fifteen years old, and performing them in any number of ways. He’s still doing that. I put on …Budokan a few nights ago while preparing for this. It’s pretty wild. It’s pretty far out how different the arrangements are. The bands he was putting together then – for Rolling Thunder Revue, and that whole six- or seven-year period – were pretty wild bands. Mick Ronson, and so many interesting people playing together. How they ended up at these different walls of sounds, specifically with the rhythms. It just reminds you that there’s no right or wrong way of doing it. Just go with the times, and go with the moment.
“But the ’66 show, when I was starting out, that was what kept me up at night. The mystique behind it. We obviously just played the Royal Albert Hall this summer. It was sick. I mean, the Royal Albert Hall is the show, you know. All you have to do is make sure to play in the right key. It’s such an enjoyable place to be. It doesn’t carry the weight that playing the O2 Arena does for instance, that stress. When you play the Royal Albert Hall, people just love being there. It’s beautiful, comfortable, it sounds killer. What a cool way to see a band. You’re super close. They gave us a tour of the archives, and they had the show flyers from Hendrix and the Dylan ’66 show. I was just thumbing through it thinking ‘do I have to wear gloves?’ It was really special. To play that room, from that record. Even though it was recorded in Manchester…”
Live Drugs Again is out now.
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