Live album shootout, semifinal 1

Let the semifinals begin... There will be four semifinals and two albums of each will make it to the final.
The groups have been drawn with some seeding (depending on results of the first round) and no two albums that were in the same heat before are in the same semifinal now. So the semifinals may look differently strong (this one with three "big 6" band albums looks quite heavy) but there's some fair system behind it. 

This semifinal is headed by Bursting Out, which beat King Crimson's live albums earlier. I haven't read much talk about Bursting Out; I'm not really sure how highly this is rated when set against a strong field. Seconds Out needed the redemption round to qualify and was therefore seeded in the last pot but my gut feeling is that this could even win here, given the popularity of the material on it; and it is in fact pretty decent. Pictures at an Exhibition is one of the few live albums that presents exclusive material rather than some kind of "best of" collection. It surprised me by beating "Welcome Back my Friends..." and challenging Ummagumma hard in its qualifying heat, so the final certainly doesn't look out of reach for it.

I know that the Magma album is loved much around here, only maybe by not enough people to compete with Tull, Genesis or ELP? I'd be happy to see it doing well. The Grobschnitt album may not be well known enough to score high here but it's the one album that eclipses all the other (quite rich) output of that band by a country mile and more. If this was a band popularity contest it wouldn't stand any chance at all, but who knows? Perhaps enough people go for the legendary special and exclusive live experience represented on it. 

Transatlantic's album finally represents the 21st century and is as such a treasured addition to this semifinal. I admit that I only heard it inspired by running this live album series but I like what I heard. My expectations may be way off the mark but if I'm honest, if this one ended up ranked four, it'd already have surprised me - not because of quality, just because my observations on this forum teach me that the 21st century cannot normally compete with the classics. But you're of course free to prove me wrong.

Not the best time to start new polls with all these furious necroposters around.


Solar Music, baby!

Seconds Out.

Bursting Out.

Bursting Out

Grobschnitt followed by Magma.

Magma

GROBSCHNITT!!

Whirld Tour 2010 Shepherd's Bush Empire - I had just about given up on prog until I head this..

Bursting Out. Just to piss off Mick.