Music: Rigidly Structured or Improvisational?

So I was recently reading an interview with Tea Leaf Green’s Josh Clark (guitar, vocals) about the band’s latest album, “Looking West” (an awesome album from an awesome band if you haven’t picked it up yet).

One quote in particular struck me as interesting and familiar:

“That’s why I’m in a jam band, because of that, I think I’d go nuts if I had to play a set list from start to finish every night. Although it seems to be a little more successful of a business model, creatively and artistically, it is much more fun to be in a jam band,”

Think about that for a moment.

We, as a musical consumer society, prefer that artists actually suppress their energy when we are with them in person into a sound that meets our preconceived notion of their artistic expression.

Isn’t this 100% counter to what seeing a live act should be?