Songs you didn't like much until seeing/hearing a live version

[KevShmev]

In other words, do not include songs where the first time you heard them was the live version.

I am talking songs that you already knew and weren't that crazy about until you heard or saw a live version that made you really like it. 

My picks:

Muse - Guiding Light  It's still not even close to one of my favorite Muse songs, but I like it quite a bit now thanks to the Rome DVD.
Dream Theater - The Mirror/Lie Aside from The Mirror's intro (which I already knew from the Tokyo live video), I wasn't wild about either of these songs at first - believe it or not, they were still what I deemed "too heavy" for my tastes in late 1994 - but after seeing them live on the Awake tour, where they slayed, my tune quickly changed.
U2 - Lemon In the studio, it is kind of plodding and a but uninspired, but their shorter/more condensed and inspired version on the ZOO TV really made me love this song.

[TAC]

Not to go all 80's metal, but in 1987 I went to the Grim Reaper/Armored Saint/Helloween tour.
Now Armored Saint was a band from the early 80's that I just did not get. But going to the show exclusively to see Helloween, we stayed for "a song or two" of Armored Saint, and proceeded to be blown away.
A band whose albums that do not even begin to convey the energy this band has. Been a Top 10 band for me ever since.


Oh, but a song that would apply here is I Walk Beside You. Saw it in '06 in Boston and the crowd was so into it, as was JLB.

[Tom Bombadil]

Sleep Together was always my least favorite song on FOABP until SW absolutely killed it live.

[senecadawg2]

Sleep Together was always my least favorite song on FOABP until SW absolutely killed it live.

Good call- this is so very true... And a recent one for me too.

Also, Our Fortress is Burning (Agalloch), Dark Eternal Night (DT), and The Trooper (Iron Maiden).

[James Mypetgiress]

Dream Theater - Innocence Faded - It was always a song I skipped over, but I love it now.
Area 11 - The Strays - I know very few people here will like Area 11, but the saxophone section at the start was quite off-putting for me. I saw it live, and loved it.

[Dr. DTVT]

I thought so little of the album version of Index that I didn't recognize it live.  The live version slays the album version to death.

[dparrott]

Battle by Blur.  So much better live.
https://youtu.be/bKlcPMatPLA

[Fluffy Lothario]

Hex Omega

[erwinrafael]

Dream Theater's The Shattered Fortress. Thanks, Mangini.

[Tom Bombadil]

I thought so little of the album version of Index that I didn't recognize it live.  The live version slays the album version to death.

Yeah I almost said this one too. I like the album version, but live was amazing.

[Zantera]

Index is great live, but the version on this tour with the finger snapping and the first verse/chorus being done without music was incredibly awkward. It still sounds great on album though.

[pain of occupation]

Opeth's A Fair Judgement

[Evermind]

Dream Theater's The Shattered Fortress

This one. I'm still not in love with TSF madly, but I like it much better after the last DT tour.

Also:

Sonata Arctica - I Have a Right (well, I still don't like it much, but I can at least tolerate it live)
Blind Guardian - The Ninth Wave (this is real killer live, and on the album I hate it after the first few minutes)

[lonestar]

Everything by Nightwish. Didn't think much of them as a band in general until they blew me the fuck away headlining with Kamelot. (I mainly went to see Kamelot)

[bl5150]

Everything by Nightwish. Didn't think much of them as a band in general until they blew me the fuck away headlining with Kamelot. (I mainly went to see Kamelot)

Good to hear - I am seeing Nightwish for the first time in January.

[?]

I thought so little of the album version of Index that I didn't recognize it live.  The live version slays the album version to death.

Yeah I almost said this one too. I like the album version, but live was amazing.

Dream Theater's The Shattered Fortress

This one. I'm still not in love with TSF madly, but I like it much better after the last DT tour.

Also:

Sonata Arctica - I Have a Right (well, I still don't like it much, but I can at least tolerate it live)

These.

[snowdog]

Porcupine Tree - A Smart Kid

[TAC]

Rush's Marathon is 1000x better than the studio version.

[rumborak]

"Let me entertain you" by Queen. A somewhat vapid song on the album, but I totally understood its purpose when seeing a live video of it.

[Setlist Scotty]

The only thing I can really think of that applies to this thread would be Queensryche's Hear in the Now Frontier album. When I first got it, I HATED it. Couldn't stand anything on it except spOOL, which sounded like the QR I knew. As it turns out, I ended up catching them twice on that tour (Alpine Valley and Tinley Park/Chicago) and I got to hear a number of those songs in the live setting next to the older stuff, and then I was able to finally get into some of the songs. It still is far from my favorite album from them, and there's still some stuff on there that I completely loathe (such as Get a Life), but I have appreciation for it now, whereas I had zero for it originally.

[Rattlehead]

Radiohead - Reckoner

[KevShmev]

Rush's Marathon is 1000x better than the studio version.

I sure hope you are talking about the A Show of Hands version, not the Time Machine Tour version, since Geddy couldn't sing the chorus worth a darn by then.  Rush has rarely disappointed me over the years, but finally seeing that tune live was a bit anti-climatic because, again, Geddy just can't sing it right anymore.

[LordCost]

Handful Of Nothing by Pain Of Salvation! I really liked the live version of the Ending Themes DVD, but it was one of my least favourites of the studio album