John Richards

Earlier this month, David Byrne teamed with Choir! Choir! Choir! for a performance as part of New York’s Under the Radar Festival. In tribute to the late, great David Bowie, the Talking Heads frontman and the crowd-sourced singing group covered “Heroes”. Commenting on working with the Choir! Choir! Choir!, Byrne said in a press release, “There is a transcendent feeling in being subsumed and surrendering to a group. This applies to sports, military drills, dancing… and group singing. One becomes a part of something larger than oneself, and something in our makeup rewards us when that happens. We cling to our individuality, but we experience true ecstasy when we give it up. So, the reward experience is part of the show.” See the video of the performance here: youtu.be

Devotchka's "How It Ends" Live with the Colorado symphony was KEXP's featured Song of the Day back in December of 2012. www.kexp.org

Peter Gabriel also released Secret World Live as a film. The show is performed across two stages: a square and a circular stage, bridged by a conveyor belt. It was released on VHS, LaserDisc and DVD. Mmmm, LaserDisc.

Toward the Within was recorded in November 1993 at the Mayfair Music Hall in Santa Monica, California and was released by 4AD as an album and a video (VHS and LaserDisc) a year later. It was the last major event to take place in the Mayfair Music Hall before it was severely damaged in the Northridge earthquake in January 1994 and had to be closed indefinitely. The owner gutted the building and removed all the ornate decor and the building was eventually demolished in 2010. In 1974, the theater was used to film the famous "Puttin' on the Ritz" sequence in Young Frankenstein.

Yes, last April David J of Bauhaus did perform live on the Morning Show! You didn't make that up. You can even watch it here: bit.ly

Farrell (Blender magazine, December 2006): "Around 1984, I rented a big house on Wilton, near Hancock Park, right in the heart of everything good in Hollywood, but the whole neighborhood seemed deteriorated. I deceived the landlord into thinking I was a gay interior decorator rather than a Punk rocker, and one of my housemates was Jane, this strangely beautiful, well-to-do girl who got caught up in the drug scene and fell in love with a dealer named Sergio. Jane was an intellectual and knew how to act aristocratic, even with a needle and a spoon on the table. I'm not sure if the song mythologized the neighborhood - St. Andrew's Place is nothing special to look at - but I do think it glamorized her life in a way. That was a great time, though. When the landlord found out I wasn't a gay interior decorator, he came after me with a gun."

Here is The Cure performing Just Like Heaven live in Leipzig in 1990: www.youtube.com

This album is an edited recording of the band's headline performance at Glastonbury CND Festival 'in 1987. It was first released as a live album in 1992. The album charted at number thirty-three on the UK Albums Chart and was certified as Silver (60,000 units sold) by the BPI.

When Crowded House reunited in 2016, Neil Finn explained that he's happy to keep playing this one. He told ABC: "I really enjoy singing it every time I do it, and I'm super pleased and proud that the song that is almost the most identifiable for us is, I think, one of my best songs."

The song would quickly catch on as a fan favorite at the band's concerts and was used as the opening song for the Construction Time Again tour. The first live version of the song to appear on a commercial release came from the Some Great Reward tour in 1984 when a recording from a show in Liverpool appeared on the double A-sided "Blasphemous Rumours/Somebody" single. During the Music for the Masses Tour, the band used "Everything Counts" as the final encore and in 1989, the song would be re-released as a single in live form, to promote the live album 101.

U2 closed most of their concerts in the '80s with this. At a concert in Chicago on April 29, 1987, Bono said: "This is a song that when we were being thrown out of the studio... we spent ten minutes writing this next song, ten minutes recording it, ten minutes mixing it, ten minutes playing it back, and that's nothing to do with why it's called '40.'"

This is from Queen's appearance at Live Aid, where the 72,000-person crowd at Wembley Stadium would often sing loudly and clap their hands in unison. Queen's performance at Live Aid was later voted the greatest live show of all time by a large selection of musicians and critics. You can see it here: bit.ly

He said it was the most difficult song he had ever sung in his life, but boy did George Michael do it justice. He performed this at The Freddie Mercury Tribute Concert at Wembley Stadium in April 1992 with the rest of Queen. Here is a video of him rehearsing for it backed by the band with David Bowie and Seal applauding in the background. ind.pn

Every festival season, almost without fail, Prince would inevitably come up on the list of rumored headliners for one fest or another. It almost never came to be, of course — except for one magical summer in 2008. That year, Prince graced the Coachella main stage for what was surely one of the greatest sets Indio has ever seen, or ever will. www.youtube.com

This is from a Benaroya Hall show from 1-30-15. See it here: www.youtube.com

This fades into "You'll Never Walk Alone," which is a song from Carousel, a musical by Rodgers and Hammerstein. However, the song was recorded at a soccer match; Liverpool fans use this as their anthem. They're chanting "Liverpool."

Gerry & the Pacemakers had included the song in their stage act for a long time. When they decided to record it as their third single, producer George Martin enhanced the song by adding strings. When it topped the UK chart, they became the first act to reach #1 in the UK with their first 3 singles. Soon afterwards it was adopted by the fans of Liverpool Football Club as the club's anthem.

During the short instrumental break, Pearl Jam often extends the song by adding a short song or poem in live shows.

The Will Toledo-led band covers a lot of different tracks during their sets, and at their homecoming gig at The Neptune in 2016, they covered the Talking Heads’ Speaking In Tongues track “This Must Be the Place (Naive Melody)” with the help of their opening band, Naked Giants. You can see it here: youtu.be