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So glad you mentioned Pink Floyd. On their 1977 tour, they performed Animals in its entirety followed by the complete Wish You Were Here. Whew. Then they encored with Money and a couple of other songs.

Also, I saw Killing Joke perform their first & second albums in full last year. It was great to hear these seminal albums attacked with renewed fury 30 years after they came out. And I'm on the "deep cuts" side of the argument. I think it's safe to say that KJ would not have performed such personal favorites as Butcher or SO36 if they weren't working their way through the entire albums.

Let's not underplay the emotional connection. It's not just nostalgia for the music itself. I recently saw Springsteen perform The River, and for me it was a portal in time, back to who I was as a teenager in 1980 and what I was going through then.

I also felt that connection when I saw The Who reenact Quadrophenia, and even They Might Be Giants doing Flood. Experiencing these great albums in concert takes you back to yourself.

Multiply that power by the live experience being a communal one. There's nothing like the energy of being surrounded by thousands of people who connect to these albums in the same way. Seems that nobody today is making "albums" as great as some of these classics. Awesome show today, dude.

Phish actually has played six (cover) albums in their entirety.

1994 - Beatles White Album

1995 - The Who - Quadrophenia . . (heard a rumor that the Who reunited to play this album as a direct result of Phish doing it.

1996 - Talking Heads - Remain in the Light

1998 - Velvet Underground - Loaded
1998 - Pink Floyd - Dark Side of the Moon

2009 - Rolling Stones - Exile on Main St

Phish always plays an album that reflects where the band feels it is at that point in time. The choice of 'Exile', so far, fits right in with the down to earth style they have sported since starting to tour again.

I saw Springsteen perform Born to Run front to back twice at Giants Stadium last month. Was great fun for Bruce and the band to play the songs in sequence as originally intended and the fans ate it up. Of course with Bruce, he wouldn't just play the whole album. There were plenty of surprises before and after! Good friends of mine who are die-hard Springsteen fans saw him perform The River front to back at MSG and said it was the best show. Ever.

Nostalgia is killing what's left of music "culture".

I think this depends on the context and isn't a blanket like or dislike. The Who's Quadraphenia is meant to be played continously...there are iconic albums that are a treat to hear this way, as in cases where an album was conceived as one piece of work rather than a handfull of musical darts being thrown at the pop radio heavy rotation bullseye. Do you think anyone whould have sat down to hear the Beattles do Sgt Pepper in its whole as they did with Aja?

Phish is a different case of course as they're playing a different band's album, as they do every Halloween as their "costume," and its the only chance you have at hearing them do anything that not completely improvised and unique every time you hear them.

I saw Christian Death in 1989, an all original lineup reunion concert doing their 1979 classic "Only Theater of Pain" from start to finish followed by a cover of Bowie's Dodo. It was one of the best shows I've seen.

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I saw at least three "final" performances of The Who's Tommy, loved every one of them.

I saw Bruce Springsteen's recent show at the Garden, the second night when he played the entirety of the River.

To be honest, it wasn't my favorite album, but it gave me a fantastic new impression of it. The other awesome factor is that, for someone like the Boss who has had a huge variety of sound, you get to hear the whole narrative sound of an album in one, and impression I wouldn't have gotten from hearing a single song from the album.

All Tommorrow's Parties started up a "Don't Look Back Series" focusing on seminal albums. And it's Brilliant.

Echo & the Bunnymen performed Ocean Rain at Radio City Music Hall with a full orchestra, and it was the best concert of my life. They preceded that with a sequence of "hits", which were great, but Ian McCulloch really seemed to enjoy performing Ocean Rain. It all sounded amazing.

There is a precedent for playing a whole album from start to finish live in concert. In 1975 the band English prog band Van Der Graaf Generator played their ablum 'Godbluff' from start to finish live in France. This is one of the rare film documents avaiable of this great band in their prime and is avaiable on DVD.

It's fantastic!

we caught steely dan at the beacon, doing pretzel logic. we would have seen the dan in any form, but they chose the album format. it was fun, but guess what--the average dan fan is old--at least old enough for some of them to have walkers, or too much belly to stand up with any frequency. as a girl around the age of 40, i was in the minority of those dancing. the 50-something woman next to me smuggled in a litre box 'o wine, and was passing it around, so it wasn't completely geriatric. still--what can you expect of a concert dominated by aja? zzzzzzzz.

brian wilson pet sounds was great. van morrison doing astral weeks had some people in tears but otherwise it was pretty mellow. however, i've seen decemberists do hazards of love three times and it is beyond amazing evey time and the crowd can't get enough and sing every word.

To say that the entire idea of full-album shows is far too general. So much depends on the band, and the album they're playing. I was at Public Enemy's Takes a Nation show and was blown away at how vibrant and live they made that dense album. Some albums just aren't great start to finish, and so these obviously make for lopsided shows. But with the right band playing the right album, they can be very rewarding.

I'm just worried that my $60 for the Pixies was a bit of a rip, as Doolittle is barely 40 minutes long!

Having missed the 2004 Slayer tour where they DID play the classic 29 minute assault of "Reign in Blood" from start to finish to close their set, I should think that the experience would have been nothing less than face-melting. If only...and the band has said that they still enjoy playing shows like that - closing out their show with the 10 songs off that record. Roaring.

I saw Roger Waters play the Dark Side of the Moon Live a couple of years ago and it was incredible. Though it did help that he did two sets, with varied hits through the first set, an intermission, then the main event.

I saw two of these: Brian Wilson's "Pet Sounds" concert and Cheap Trick's "In Color" concert. Both were amazing and very entertaining. These were both about 10 years ago, though when this was a new idea.

I also saw a recreation of the White Album by a cast of many in New Brunswick. This was great, with meticulous detail and included a live version of Revolution Number 9.

I'm totally in favor of this trend.

Missed the concert but the New York Times reviewer noted that Thom Yorke's performed The Eraser in entirety (followed by other songs) at his LA concert in October. Per the reviewer, in concert the band (not Radiohead) changed the feel of the songs in many ways, from making abstract songs sound kinetic to finding a "tribal" rhythms in place of electronic sounds. Wish I had been there!

I saw Primus play a few years ago, they played their entire album Sailing the Seas of Cheese -- all the while the music videos were being projected behind them. It was weird, but kind of cool.

I saw Springsteen recently do the Wild Innocent and E-street shuffle album at the garden. it was magical! Everyone was singing along and dancing the whole night. He and the band seemed to really enjoy it. Incredible. I've seen him countless times and this was up with the very best shows.

If you grew up with an album, when one song ends you hear the beginning of the next song in your head. Well-crafted albums are journeys that the musician and the listener take, and to take that journey together could be an extremely satisfying and rewarding experience. I can think of a few artists, The Pixies included, and several deceased artists whose album-concerts I would love to see.

I think some albums require front to back performances, especially brilliant "concept" albums such as when Brian Wilson did "Pet Sounds" and "Smile" in their entirety in concert. For albums that are just an assembly of tracks, probably not. Could you imagine Motley Crue doing "Shout To the Devil"? Probably not.

Coming in positive on this one! Fans often form a personal relationship with an album, and the memories of this can be unlocked by that specific sequence of tracks. And that the very band is playing it makes it the manifestation of that cumulative experience.

Silly Premise: For now, most "album" concerts/tours are usually done as one offs. It allows genuine fans to hear songs that are not usually played live.

If you're under 25, the whole point of an album maybe mute but for the rest of us, it can bring back memories of infinite hours of of scratched LP's and warped tapes.

Extra credit to concept albums a la PINK FLOYD

It may not work for every artist, but for those of us who learned to love Bruce on vinyl in the 70's, hearing the album in its entirety, in order, is part of the magic of the music....I don't by the way have the same feelings about his newer music on CD.

I guess if mainly matters if you like the album or not. Also it makes a difference to me whether it's planned or not. When Nine Inch Nails played The Downward Spiral in its entirety, it was a surprise and therefore special (and also supplemented by other "hits" afterwards). But I'm not sure I would been as excited if that was the purpose of the entire tour as that's not my favorite album. Now if it had been The Fragile...

The ultimate whole album performance was at Merkin Hall for Dylan'd Blood On The Tracks 25th anniversary show. Various artists played their versions of the songs in album order. Culminating with the whole group performing I Shall Be Released. This was a magnificent show. including Joan Osborne, Jen Chapin, Vernon Reid, Citizen Cope, Tony Bisconti, Richard Barone and Toshi Reagon whose performance of Tangled up in Blue was beyond perfect.

"Necro-staliga" at its finest. If a certain album is their only claim to fame, why not- it's what the aging hipsters remember. However, it should ONLY cost the price of a cd or iTunes download.

What if the Grateful Dead had announced sometime in the '80's or '90's that you were definitely going to hear 'Dark Star' or 'Ripple' on a given night?

Yeah, I still would have gone.

I used to be a disjointed music listener, jumping around from favorite song to favorite song and then my brother screamed at me for doing so. Now I listen to albums and I hear the story that the band want to present. I don't want to go to a concert to hear a best of I want to be told a story. How many people have seen the same opera or play hundreds of time knowing exactly what will come next? Every performance is it's own unique experience, even if the story is the same.

Isn't there also a tacit admission by these bands that they now suck?

I saw Husker Du play their last album(a double)"Warehouse: Songs and Stories" on one of their tours. It was interesting as a concept but really didn't work. You knew what was coming next and it wasn't their best work. I guess it depends on the band and the audience.

For the record, the Huskers after the aforementioned tour then did a short tour playing everything they ever did or covered. That show was amazing.

I have seen 2 such shows: Lou Reed performing Berlin at St. Anne's Warehouse with a full choir. We were totally unfamiliar with the material and were blown away by the show. After Berlin Lou and the band then went on to perform several songs from his different albums include Candy Says with Antony of Antony & the Johnsons

Patti Smith - Horses - At BAM with special guest Flea on bass. Again, a phenominal show.

However, when it is a concept album like Aimee Mann's "The Forgotten Arm" it works better.

Seeing Sonic Youth play "Daydream Nation" in its entirety was hugely rewarding. I was too young to catch the original daydream tour, and the band had stopped playing most of the songs from that album. Finally getting to see them do that material was amazing, and they've now started incorporating more of that record's material in their current tour.

Some albums were originally intended to be a flowing piece, a song cycle. Do people really object to Brian Wilson performing Pet Sounds in its entirety?? Most performers do an additional set of non-related songs, anyway.

The problem is you take an album like Heart's Dreamboat Annie which only has ten tracks, three of which are Dreamboat Annie, the title track!!! And they actually put out a dvd of it too!

Boring, boring, boring. It’s another sign of the concept of imagination and creativity being sucked out of the world of pop-music. Are music lovers so afraid of experimentation nowadays that artists can't play songs in *GASP* a non-predicatable order?

I'm somewhat ambivalant on this one- what's wrong with The Wall or Tommy live? I can't imagine anything more boring for the bands though- talk about killing an album for a performer.

I often separate a "studio" experience from a live one. I listen to an album to hear an artist reach towards perfection (in their ears) in a closed environment; at a concert, I want to hear those songs explored and reinterpreted (the spontaneity alluded to in the show promo). If a band wants to mix the two, I, for one, am excited to hear the results -- a piece of art, in a specific sequence, played live allowing that aspect to change the art.

I, too, saw Bruce play an album -- Born In the USA -- and while I would have preferred one of the other offerings, it was fun to hear.

(Although, I will add, I appreciate that Bruce played an equal amount of music not on the album. If it was just the album, and nothing else . . . I may feel slightly different.)

Doing only a mere album is for wusses. I'm playing every single original Beatles song (185) in ONE DAY on ukulele with 60 guest singers, Sunday December 6 at Brooklyn Bowl. Now that's commitment.

It's both an experience for the audience and the artist. I can't think of one artist that goes out every night and performs their album from start to finish in it's entirety. This is novel for the artist and provides challenges for instrument changes and songs that might be difficult to play back to back. Especially when issues in the recording become sounds that have to be recreated in the live setting.

For example, Phil Collin's compressed drumming which came from using a talkback mic in the studio. This sound had to find it's way to the stage. The nice thing is as technology has advanced, you can recreate those sounds easier on stage than before.

From the audience's perspective, there's different types of audience members. There are some that relish live music with an interest for it's spontaneous interaction and others that are most comfortable when pieces are performed to the letter and that is their ideal of the highest quality experience. For the latter, the album being performed in it's entirety is a wonderful experience.

It all depends upon the integrity and the care the artist takes when conceiving and performing the show, just like anything else an artist does...

Last month I saw Springsteen perform "Darkness on the Edge of Town" in its entirety at Giants Stadium. It's a phenomenal album, one that plays well live, and one whose full force was only amplified by hearing it all together. In part this was because some of the best songs aren't Springsteen concert staples, and even more importantly, it was because Springsteen clearly poured himself into the performance of these emotional songs. [For fans, I'm particularly referring to "Adam Raised a Cain", "Something in the Night", and "Streets of Fire".]

That said, it also worked because it wasn't the entire show. Springsteen can pull it off because his shows routinely clock in at nearly three hours, so a 47-minute album is really just an extended suite of sorts. That same show featured many other high points that weren't even part of the album set.

I'm going to see the Pixies play "Doolittle" tonight, and I'm excited, and hopeful that they will bring a similar intensity and integrity to their performance, and that they too will go well beyond the album itself.

It depends on the show.

I saw Elvis Costello perform his newest album in its entirety (or close to it) at the Beacon and it was a terribly boring show . .

On the other hand, i can't overstate how incredible it was to see Phish perform the Stones' album 'Exile on Main st.' on Halloween. They walked the perfect line of bringing their own voice into it, while staying true to the Stones' original creation. It was fresh and nostalgic at the same time . . . 100 times better than seeing Elvis plod through his latest for the sake of promoting a new album

I think it is self-indulgent and quite boring. If I want to hear the album I will stay at home.

I was lucky enough to go to Bruce Springsteen's concert in Buffalo, where he & the E Street Band performed Greetings From Asbury Park live.

It was an extraordinary experience. While the album segment did not feature the tight pacing of the rest of the show, and the audience response was not as enthusiastic for some of the darker or quieter songs, the band infused new life into the album, and the performance yielded new insights into the directions that Bruce's songwriting would take in future years.

For many artists the album is a deliberate journey. I like (or trust) the ride that they intended. If the sequence is irrelevant to the artist - then by all means mix it up. I am a choreographer and I am not sure I would show a completed piece out of sequence -- dilutes the intention. Maybe the discussion should be about "artist" vs "musician" - are they the same thing?