Disagree completely with the Pink Floyd mentions (even though Nick is right about Gilmour's Echoes).
He was quoting me, so technically it was I who was right
Could you articulate why you don't agree with the other Floyd mentions though? I am just curious.
And to be fair, I was referring to the Remember That Night version.
When it comes to the classic 70s era Pink Floyd, you're getting real close to perfection, both from the standpoint of production and musicianship. As much as I love all four guys, I don't think any of them were really good enough at what they did to pull off their material at it's best every night. I'd give anything to be able to go back and see them just jam for 3 hours in the early 70s, but I'd never expect it to have the impact of the studio recordings.
Once they expanded, both as a whole and as PF and RW, it became a different phenomenon. It certainly sounded bigger, which in some cases is better. But at the same time, seeing a 15 man all-star band pull out a nice rendition of Dogs can't compare with hearing what just those 4 guys mustered up in a studio. Plus, it never really turned out the same. I've seen both Gilmour's Pink Floyd and Roger Water's band (x2) play DSotM, and I didn't think either of them pulled off what they had recorded 20-30 years earlier (although the PF presentation was certainly spectacular). Honestly, I think DT did it better than either of them.
I will say that I was probably wrong in my original statement. I hadn't considered the Learning to Fly material. Yeah, probably all of that was better live. At least it would have been watchable if not listenable.