[Jgrubb]

Two things..

The Allman's Fillmore album (iirc) was their first #1 album, released within weeks of Dwayne's death. That album more or less cemented their financial viability to this day.

Recording live shows was not the trivial matter back in the analog era that it is today. You basically needed a trucks worth of absurdly expensive and delicate equipment to be set up and torn down every night, whereas most bands that multitrack their shows today plug one cable into their digital soundboard and that's all there is to it. Also, Phish's isn't releasing multitracks on livephish, those are most likely 4 track blends of the stereo soundboard feed mixed with a pair of crowd mics.