Albums make comeback as concert gimmick

updated 2:53 p.m. ET Aug. 6, 2008

NEW YORK - Play it again, Sam. The whole album, please — and in order.

An unmistakable trend in concert-going is the growing number of acts performing their classic albums in full. Part marketing gimmick, part an act of nostalgia, the performances are above all communal celebrations of the album as an art form.

The album is being feted just as — thanks to iPods and MP3s — its demise is being portended.

To quote the Marvin Gaye album, “What’s going on?”

At July’s Pitchfork Festival in Chicago, Public Enemy performed 1988’s hip-hop classic “It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back,” Sebadoh played their 1993 lo-fi indie favorite “Bubble and Scrape” and Mission of Burma trotted out their 1982 post-punk full-length “Vs.”

Earlier this year at the Coachella Valley Music & Arts Festival in California, Roger Waters played the Pink Floyd classic “Dark Side of the Moon” as his second set.

All of these concerts follow other album performances by Jay-Z, Lucinda Williams, Sonic Youth, Wilco, Slint, Iron Maiden and GZA over the last two years.

As she did earlier this year, Liz Phair will play her landmark 1993 debut, “Exile in Guyville,” in three shows later this month to coincide with a re-release of the disc, commemorating its 15-year anniversary.

The concerts can be meaningful experiences for both artist and listener. The audience gets to hear the music exactly as they digested it — and perhaps grew to love it.

“We’re all coming there with a kind of expectation,” said Phair. “It’s the kind of show you have to bring something to. You can’t just come and sit back and let it happen. You have to bring your memories. You have to bring your 1993 self.”

The trend is even visible in movie theaters. Currently playing in select theaters is Julian Schnabel’s concert film of Lou Reed performing his 1973 album, “Berlin.” Reed also did a tour of “Berlin” last year.

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Though Reed did the shows on his own, it was Barry Hogan who first suggested the idea to him. Hogan is a London-based concert promoter for All Tomorrow’s Parties, a festival whose “Don’t Look Back” series has been the trendsetter in getting bands to play their classic albums.

In its inaugural year in 2006, albums were performed by the Stooges (“Funhouse”), Gang of Four (“Entertainment!”), Belle & Sebastian (“If You’re Feeling Sinister”), Cat Power (“The Covers Record”) and Dinosaur Jr. (“You’re Living All Over Me”).

“When you first mention it to artists, a lot of them, their initial reaction is, ‘What’s wrong with our new stuff?”’ said Hogan.

But they’ve been quicker to come around to the idea, said Hogan. At the ATP festival Aug. 19-21 in the Catskills in upstate New York, Built to Spill, the Meat Puppets, Tortoise and Thurston Moore will all perform albums in full.

“Some people mistake what we’re doing with ’Don’t Look Back’ that we’re just trying to be quite retro,” said Hogan. “It’s more a case of we’re celebrating the album.”

Though acts reach back into their catalog during a typical performance, many musicians never perform more than a handful of songs from an album. “Guyville,” after all, is 18 songs long. But it was composed as a cohesive artistic statement — a kind of song-by-song feminist response to another great album, the Rolling Stones’ “Exile on Main Street.”

“After every single record I’ve finished, I’ve said in my own head or to other people, ‘Wouldn’t it be great if we could just go out and perform it top to bottom?”’ said Phair. “As I perform the songs, I had the time and focus to really think about what I was thinking about when I wrote that song.”

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