Though no studio album can fully recreate the collective energy and creative spontaneity that is shared between artist and audience when a performance unfolds in real time, you do have to be suspicious when you hear someone say of a band, “Their albums suck, but they’re amazing live.” From the Grateful Dead to just about every artist whose main gift is improvisation, the argument goes that the creative act is the pure and undiluted moment, something that pushes music into a transcendent realm that is beyond anything that can be captured on tape (or hard drives) in sterile and controlled rooms. No doubt, the craft of album-making and the art of live performance are different disciplines, and musicians naturally have varying strengths that show themselves in different settings, but a concert is ultimately an ephemeral experience that can only be ...