7 awesome song videos

In my Learning Community today we were talking about the presence of video when we listen to music. How much does seeing the band perform affect our perception of the audio? What is it about the movements, facial expressions, and emotions of the performers that reach us as the audience? It's a lot of fun to think about, and got me specifically wondering what songs were most enhanced by an accompanying video. Well, here they are!

1. Best of You (Live at Wembley Stadium) - Foo Fighters. I was torn between this song and the next one, (Editor's Note: I'm actually torn between every song Foo Fighters played at Wembley Stadium. Such an amazing concert that I've only seen on YouTube.) but when Dave Grohl is in tears, that song has to be at the top of the list. Foo Fighters as incredibly powerful as it is, but when you have 80,000 other people singing along...come on.

2. My Hero (Live at Wembley Stadium) - Foo Fighters. 4:10. All I need to say about this. Gives me goosebumps every time, and I love that Foo Fighters always plays "My Hero" acoustically in concert. Watching Dave Grohl run around the stage reminds me a little bit of Bono during U2 concerts. Which reminds me...

3. Where the Streets Have No Name (Live at Super Bowl XXXVI) - U2. The song starts around 6:15. What I find interesting about live performances is how in-tune the singers are. I think that the heightened emotion of some concerts (as in the two I've talked about so far) might make singers a little more out of tune than they would be in the studio, but nonetheless, it's about the performance. I don't need to say a lot about this one, either.

4. Ocean (Live from Red Rocks) - John Butler Trio. Any version of this song is amazing, but this one especially is one of my favorites. Granted, when Vicki and I saw JBT live, I had never enjoyed a live song like when John Butler played "Ocean," but as far as videos go, I think that this is the best to actually watch him do his thing. The dude feels his music. Watching him feel his music makes me feel his music. Point videos.

5. Layla (Live at Madison Square Garden) - Eric Clapton. God damn, I love Eric Clapton. My favorite part of this song is easily when he plays the opening riff and the bassist flips out. That, and the first few measures of the piano outro. If there's anything I love more in music than Eric Clapton, it's the outro to "Layla." Even if it has a saxophone that has no business being part of the outro.

6. Hallelujah (Live at the Fillmore) - Rufus Wainwright. Despite the fact that Wainwright's version of this song has the one note that I want forever changed (G to G# on "composing" in the first verse and at the same point in the other verses), the guy has a lot of emotion in this song, right from the start. Which isn't how the studio version sounds, at all. Painfully amazing.

7. So Far Away - Avenged Sevenfold. For those who don't know, Avenged Sevenfold's drummer passed away in December of 2010, in the middle of the production for their most recent album. The lyrics, and more importantly, the video, of "So Far Away" tell the story of The Rev and his friendship with the rest of the band. I'll let the video do the talking for me.

I was going to talk about ten songs, but honestly, the last three would be Foo Fighters videos. And as much as I love them, I don't want half of these music videos to be theirs. Two-sevenths is fine.

(Editor's Note: For the record..."Monkey Wrench," "The Pretender," and "Walk.")