I am one of the minority who really enjoys live albums (apparently they normally don't sell well). If a band has a live album, I will use that as my introduction to them.
On a similar note, there are bands that I have seen live who had previously underwhelmed me but, after seeing them live, I was turned into a fan. The live show is always what mattered to me. This is why if a studio album sounds raw and relatively unpolished, I will probably like that much more than if the album went thru the Phil Specter treatment.