The Album Lives...Live!

Steely Dan's Aja. Van Morrison's Astral Weeks. Aerosmith's Toys in the Attic. Todd Rundgren's A Wizard a True Star. As the summer concert season winds down, it seems that 2009 was, for many, a celebration and reclamation of the album, for fan and artist alike. Anyone lucky enough to catch Steely Dan's Boston show not only got to hear the jazz/pop sounds of Aja from the opening groove of "Black Cow" to the final notes of the radio hit "Josie", but they were also treated to a surprise performance of the Dan's guitar masterpiece, The Royal Scam. And so it was with Van Morrison, Aerosmith, Todd Rundgren, and several others who chose to resurrect their most ambitious studio projects and present them from start to finish in a concert hall setting. Anyone familiar with Rundgren's psychedelic cacophony of sound on 1973's A Wizard a True Star will realize that this is no small undertaking. Same holds true for Van Morrison's brilliant 1968 recording, Astral Weeks, which relied more on improvisation than studio wizardry as he took the listener to the back streets and sounds of Belfast. And of all the Aerosmith albums, none has quite the flow and continuity of the riff rocking, greased up pubescent sleaze of Toys in the Attic. Question is, if you could pick one album to hear from start to finish, live on stage, no matter where or when or how it was recorded, what would it be? Last album you listened to start to finish? Is this the last hurrah before the album meets the same demise as the dodo?