“Let’s Stay Home Tonight” is the opening song to NEEDTOBREATHE’s Acoustic Live Album vol. 1. It starts off with some ambient padding. It sounds very mystical, and you can’t really tell what song is about to play until the opening line begins. In the studio version, there is no musical intro and it jumps into the lyrics. After the first few seconds of the padding, you hear the crowd cheering and clapping for the band. The thing I love about it being a live album instead of a studio album is that sounds besides the music itself are important elements of the listening experience. It allows the listener to immerse themselves into the song more and feel like they are actually at a concert more so than when listening to a studio version.
The fact that it’s not only live but also songs from acoustic sets helps me pay greater attention to each instrument and the vocals individually. Sometimes with an electric guitar added in, it can distract from the other elements of the song, unless that is the main element of the song. I like the more bare-bones sound of the acoustic set. The rest of the album takes you through what a concert experience seeing NEEDTOBREATHE would be like. I have actually had the privilege of seeing them in concert, and I can affirm that listening to the live album simulates what their concerts are actually like.