Why did fans used to buy "bootleg" recordings of live concerts?

Question

I'm vaguely aware of the concept of "bootleg" recordings of concerts, where some sketchy person has somehow sneaked in and plugged in their own tape recorder (or something like that) into one of the audio jacks which are apparently available in the equipment and not guarded in any way (itself strange to me), then snuck back there, removed it and disappeared before anyone caught them. And then sold this to people as a "bootleg recording".

But who would buy such a thing? Wouldn't you much rather want a studio-recorded album rather than the always inferior live performance of the same songs? Isn't the only benefit of a concert that you are there physically? It doesn't appeal whatsoever to me personally, but I can at some level understand why that's attractive to a lot of people, since you get to watch the artist perform it live, in front of your eyes, even if it's much sloppier than the "perfected" recording on the disc you buy in a store.

But if you are just listening to a recording of that concert... what's the point? Who would want, let alone buy, such a thing? Every time I've listened to live recordings of bands I like, they are always complete garbage, and I don't just mean the sound quality. It's like it's somebody else performing their song, but it's the actual artist. Nothing at all like the album. Why would I want to listen to that at home, by myself, "after the fact"?

Answer 1

You are used to highly produced music which is created primarily for studio recording, and then reproduced live on stage for fans who demand an exact copy of the recording. But there are bands, and genres, where the primary experience is the live concerts. Often, these performances include a lot of improvisation, so they are different each time. These are also typically bands which thrive off the energy coming from the audience, so the music takes on a different quality with the right audience. In turn, the live audience gains a different kind of connection with this type of music, one that can't easily be recaptured in the controlled studio setting.

Genres which are typically superior live include blues, jazz, folk, punk and "jam." The archetypal bootlegged band is the jam rock band "Grateful Dead," whose studio albums are generally dismissed as pale, inferior imitations of the live experience. This experience was a literal way of life --a quasi-religious, spiritual event --for many fans, who used to travel from town-to-town with the band in order to experience them live, over and over. These superfans' homebrewed recordings, often produced without any access at all to the official sound system, were bought, sold, and passed hand-to-hand as a proxy for actually being there. The audio quality was secondary, for such fans, to the memories of the live experience. Other well known jam bands are the Dave Matthews Band, Parliament Funkadelic, Widespread Panic and Phish.

Current music is very production-focused, which is probably why this makes little sense to you. Nearly all modern recordings are produced with a wide array of digital effects that don't translate well to the live arena. In addition, many artists either create their backing tracks solo, or have a producer who provides the background, so that the "band" that accompanies them live on stage is strictly hired to recreate the recording. It's mainly older music and genres that have the deep, unbreakable connection with live performance. (For instance, I don't care much for the blues when recorded. But good live blues is an amazing, not to be missed experience.)