B List: 10 Bands Covering Entire Albums Live

2. U-Melt covered The Police – Synchronicity
9-19-2009 – Wormtown Festival; Camp Kee-Wanee

u-melt

[Photo by Jeremy Gordon]

U-Melt has never met a cover it didn’t like, so it’s not too surprising that the Long Island natives have covered two albums in their entirety. Back on September 15, 2007 at the Wormtown Festival in Greenfield, MA the prog-jammers took a stab at Frank Zappa’s Apostrophe during their late night set in which the group was billed as Occasional Python (feat. George Miller Of U-Melt). Tapes of this performance don’t circulate and rumor has it don’t even exist.

Two years later, U-Melt tackled another album at Wormtown as they covered The Police’s Synchronicity on September 19th out of and into a staple of their repertoire, Through The Prism. Luckily, tapes of this performance exist and we profiled an audience recording for a Grousing The Aisles column. The band recently made a soundboard recording of their entire Wormtown 2009 performance available for purchase through Digitalsoundboard.net.

Selected Audio: Synchronicity II
[audio:https://glidemag.wpengine.com/hiddentrack/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/umelt1.mp3]

3. The Breakfast covered The Doors – Morrison Hotel
8-19-2005 – Puppet House Theatre, Branford CT

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[Photo by Derick Wiaderski]

The Breakfast have the unique angle of covering two albums on back-to-back days at the same venue. Night #1 they tackled this album by The Doors and…

Selected Audio: Ship Of Fools
[audio:https://glidemag.wpengine.com/hiddentrack/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/breakfast1.mp3]

Breakfast also did The Beatles – Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band
8-20-2005 – Puppet House Theatre, Branford CT

…the following night they tackled a much more challenging and musically diverse album.

Selected Audio: Lovely Rita
[audio:https://glidemag.wpengine.com/hiddentrack/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/breakfast2.mp3]

The Breakfast also covered Phish – Lawn Boy
10-27-2007 – Higher Ground, South Burlington VT

And then a couple of years later, The Breakfast came to Burlington (body soul and mind) and dropped Lawn Boy in its entirety in the Fall of 2007. Mike Gordon was in attendance and joined the band for an interesting rendition of Gloria Gaynor’s I Will Survive in the encore slot.

Selected Audio: Run Like An Antelope
[audio:https://glidemag.wpengine.com/hiddentrack/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/breakfast3.mp3]

Video of Split Open And Melt

4. The Mother Hips do Neil Young – Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere
3-10-2006 – Belly Up, Solona Beach CA

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[Photo by ND Koster]

This band first landed on my radar when we did the Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere (the album) Cover Wars and I used The Mother Hips for two of the seven tunes. The band’s on this here B List – some of them pull off the respective albums better than others. For me – this performance is the tops. The album is perfectly in their range and they do it justice.

Selected Audio: Round & Round
[audio:https://glidemag.wpengine.com/hiddentrack/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/mhblist.mp3]

5. Rose Hill Drive covered Band Of Gypsies – Band Of Gypsies
12-30-2006 Boulder Theater, Boulder CO

rose1

[Photo by Laurie Scavo]

Colorado’s Rose Hill Drive likes to cover an entire album on a certain day of the year, the day before New Year’s Eve, which is historically a fantastic night for live music. In 2006 they selected Band Of Gypsies, which is right in their rock & roll wheelhouse…

Selected Audio: Message Of Love
[audio:https://glidemag.wpengine.com/hiddentrack/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/rosehill1.mp3]

Rose Hill Drive also covered Aerosmith – Toys In The Attic
12-30-2007 Boulder Theater, Boulder CO

…the following year Rose Hill Drive once again selected another album for cover, this time selecting Aerosmith, and…

Selected Audio: Adam’s Apple
[audio:https://glidemag.wpengine.com/hiddentrack/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/rosehill2.mp3]

Rose Hill Drive also covered Led Zeppelin – Led Zeppelin II
12-30-2008 Boulder Theater, Boulder CO

…and last year they tackled yet another hard-rocker.

Selected Audio: Bring It On Home
[audio:https://glidemag.wpengine.com/hiddentrack/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/rosehill3.mp3]

6. Mr. Blotto

Overachievers Mr. Blotto seem to cover entire albums often, mainly at their festival titled Blottopia. At my first pass through of the Live Music Archive, I found seven different times Mr. Blotto has covered entire albums start to finish, there could be more. I’m going to cap the embedding at three albums.

blotto

#1 – The Who – Who’s Next
7-31-2004 Skandinavian Park, Elgin IL
Selected Audio: Love Ain’t For Keeping
[audio:https://glidemag.wpengine.com/hiddentrack/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/blotto2.mp3]

#2 – Terrapin Station
7-29-2006 Skandinavian Park, Elgin IL
Selected Audio: Terrapin Station (All of it!)
[audio:https://glidemag.wpengine.com/hiddentrack/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/blotto3.mp3]

#3- Bob Marley – Babylon By Bus
7-12-2008 – Vasa Park, Elgin IL
Selected Audio: Concrete Jungle
[audio:https://glidemag.wpengine.com/hiddentrack/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/blotto1.mp3]

They have also covered: Dark Side Of The Moon, The Doors, Stop Making Sense, Some Girls.

7. moe. covered Pink Floyd – Dark Side Of The Moon
10-31-2000 – Tower Theater, Upper Darby PA

large_moe

For the first set of their Halloween show at Philadelphia’s Tower Theatre in 2000, the boys in moe. covered Pink Floyd’s legendary album Dark Side of the Moon. Not only did they perform the album in its entirety, but they set up large monitors which displayed The Wizard of Oz that was perfectly synchronized with the music. moe. was joined by Free Beer and Chicken keyboardist Kirk Juhas on keys for the whole show.

Selected Audio: Us & Them > Any Colour You Like
[audio:https://glidemag.wpengine.com/hiddentrack/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/moeblist.mp3]

8. God Johnson covered Talking Heads – Stop Making Sense
11-14-2007 – Trocadero’s, Minneapolis MN

godjohnsonnye

Midwest jammers God Johnson took covering an album to a whole new level on November 24, 2007, when they tackled not only the soundtrack to one of the best concert films ever made, Stop Making Sense featuring the Talking Heads, but also the staging and dance moves from that classic movie. That’s right, they brought out the infamous Big Suit that David Byrne sports during Girlfriend Is Better and augmented their lineup with female singers dressed in grey spandex outfits.

Selected Audio: Slippery People
[audio:https://glidemag.wpengine.com/hiddentrack/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/gjblist.mp3]

9. Strangefolk covered Grateful Dead – Reckoning
5-24-2009 – Camp Kee Wa Nee, Greenfield MA

739005118_l

[Photo by Andy Francke]

Strangefolk, under the pseudonym The Tells, performed most of this Grateful Dead acoustic album. They left off Been All Around The World and Rosa Lee McFall. Slackers.

Selected Audio: Bird Song
[audio:https://glidemag.wpengine.com/hiddentrack/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/strangefolklist.mp3]

10. Les Claypool & His Fearless Flying Frog Brigade covered Pink Floyd – Animals
The official release Live Frogs: Set 2, which won an award at the second annual Jammy’s, was recorded over two nights at the Great American Music Hall in San Francisco in October of 2000. On a personal note, we used to listen to this shit all the time. Claypool and this band fucking CRUSH Animals.

rothburyfestivallesclaypool

Selected Audio: Dogs
[audio:https://glidemag.wpengine.com/hiddentrack/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/claypoolblist.mp3]

Some Video Of Sheep:

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