Anyone who saw him on a good night can tell you: Townes Van Zandt was a transcendent live performer. His records were good, but to hear the man in the flesh was to hear the songs breathe along with his being. This concert—recorded on April 19, 1985, to a standing-room-only crowd at 12th and Porter in Nashville—is one of several examples of what a live album should be. (Van Zandt's Live at the Old Quarter, Houston, Texas is the first must-have.) Backed only by Donny Silverman on flute and saxophone and Mickey White on second guitar, Van Zandt sails through the finer points of his catalog with a joy that never appears in his brutal songs of existential crisis. "Nothin'" and "Waitin' Round to Die" are two of his bleakest tunes, but the beauty inherent in his truth (and in Silverman's accompaniment) makes these among the best renditions available. Other classics from his catalog—"Rex's Blues," "Tecumseh Valley," and "Pancho and Lefty," made famous by Willie Nelson, Merle Haggard, and Emmylou Harris—are also performed with conviction.