STACK #242 December 2024

MUSIC FEATURE

visit jbhifi.com.au/stack

LIVE!

December delivers two killer live albums – The National’s Rome and Nickelback’s Live from Nashville .

LIVE!

A s they say, Rome wasn’t built in a day. This 21-track collection gathers material from The National’s career, which started 25 years ago and has featured ten studio albums. The double live album was recorded on June 3 this year at Rome’s THE NATIONAL

2024 COMES ALIVE!

Rome by The National is out Dec 13 via 4AD

Auditorium Parco della Musica. It’s real, it’s raw, and it captures the great American band in full flight. No overdubs. The earliest single to be featured on Rome is Lit Up , which The National originally released in 2005. The album also includes 2008’s Fake Empire . Sixteen years later, this song still resonates. Singer Matt Berninger says it’s about “where you can’t deal with the reality of what’s really going on, so let’s just pretend that the world’s full of bluebirds and ice skating”. Jeff Jenkins

Here are three more great live albums released this year:

The War on Drugs Live Drugs Again

Photo credit: Graham MacIndoe

The National’s North American tour mates – they did this year’s Zen Diagram Tour together – issued

their own live album in 2024, draw ing on gigs in the US, UK, Europe, and Australia in 2022 and 2023.

LIVE!

NICKELBACK

Paul McCartney & Wings One Hand Clapping This is the live

C had Kroeger has heard ’em all. Why do they call themselves Nickelback? Because if you see them play and you only paid a nickel for the ticket, you’d want your nickel back. There have been countless jokes and internet memes. It’s all part of the Nickelback story, which started in Canada in 1995. “Everyone’s like ‘I hate them’ or ‘I love them’,” Kroeger smiles. “Whatever it is, people are talking about us.”

album many fans thought was dead. Paul McCartney recorded these

Live from

Nashville by Nickelback is out now via BMG

songs live in the studio over four days in 1974. But the project was shelved – until this year.

Last year’s Nickelback doco was called Hate to Love . But Kroeger is content in the knowledge they’re a great live band. They’ve sold more than 50 million albums, and also have some high-profile fans, including Coldplay’s Chris Martin, who once stood up for the band, saying: “I have nothing but respect for Nickelback. They take a lot of flak from people who have never done f-ck-all in their life. “I think they’re great. That is my final word.” Jeff Jenkins

Morgan Evans Live at the Sydney Opera House

Aussie country star Morgan Evans

came home to record this live album at the

Sydney Opera House in 2023. He performs I Still Call Australia Home , and does John Williamson’s Rip Rip Woodchip with the local legend.

32 DECEMBER 2024

jbhifi.com.au