Published: Aug. 4, 2008
By JOHN DUFFY, Correspondent
The closest thing to a hometown show and Live couldn't fill a small hockey arena Friday night. Bringing along Blues Traveler and Collective Soul — two other bands whose hit-making days are a decade gone — didn't help.
Maybe it's too early for 1990s nostalgia.After all, folks who came of age, went to college and found plenty of well-paying jobs in the booming mid-90s now face the demands of family and career in an economy that is turning Generation X into Generation Foreclosure.
So it may be understandable that the Giant Center was barely over half full for a triptych of Clinton-era hitmakers — even if one of them was local favorite Live, whose members hail from York and got their start at Lancaster's Chameleon Club.It didn't help that not one of the bands had new material to support. Collective Soul put out an album available only at Target over a year ago, and Blues Traveler hasn't had anything new out in four years, only a collection of acoustic versions of their hits.
Similarly, Live's "Radiant Sea" is an odds and ends collection.But all three marquee bands, by now seasoned enough to be able to pull off a good gig in a bad situation, played for the crowd that was there, not the one they could have drawn a decade ago.When Live took the stage shortly after 9 p.m. it was a sure thing that even though a disappointing number of seats were left empty, the ones that mattered were the ones filled.
Blasting through hits and an impressive number of favorites one came to the understanding that this group's catalog was richer than their latest sales figures reveal. "I Alone," "Simple Creed" and "All Over You" connected with ragged fury, even if at first singer Ed Kowalczyk's vocals sounded shrill and distorted. (Granted, his piercing voice is probably not an easy one to mix.)"Selling the Drama" rang true with its anthemic chorus, and their version of Johnny Cash's "Walk the Line" had a cleverly inverted re-arrangement.
But Live is a band that has had to find out how to grow up and approach middle age with grace and still somehow stand by its youthful rage. It has not been an easy transition, one marked with missteps into vague Eastern spiritualism.Live still gets airplay on hard rock and adult contemporary stations (that pays the mortgages for sure), but wide acclaim and credibility for a band that goes from sales of 8 million ("Throwing Copper") to less than 100,000 ("Songs From Black Mountain") is hard to come by. But as the cliché goes, they are still big in Europe.
The more mature Live was represented by Kowalczyk's wedding song "Turn My Head," the U2-soundalike "Stood Up for Love" and the perennially popular dirge "Lightning Crashes."As for the other acts, Blues Traveler frontman John Popper led his band through jammy versions of their hits, and showed that even though his caterwauling harmonica sound may have become dated and annoying, he can still play with plenty of power and originality.
Collective Soul, who came to the stage late due to bus trouble, crammed their set into an abbreviated rundown of hits and the ones that could have been. "December" featured three guitars and a heavier arrangement than the hit single. "The World I Know" lost the strings and its preciousness to became an arena-rock power ballad.
Three has-been bands grinding out their decade-old hits not enough for you? How about a throwback cover singer in between? Enter adorable Hana Pestle, who held the crowd rapt with versions of Alanis Morissette's "Ironic" and Radiohead's "Creep" during set changes.
But what really stole the show, and the entire night to be fair, was when the six kids of the Live band members came up onstage for "Heaven," the song wherein Kowalczyk reveals that all the pent up rage of his youth and spiritual searching of early adulthood is finally vanquished in the eyes of his daughters.The kids, between the ages of about 5 and 11, danced, played air guitar and in general looked quite at home rocking out with their dads.
And as if to declare exactly where the band's future is, and indeed his own, Kowalczyk sang the song while holding his 6-year-old daughter. Corny? Sure. Sentimental and a little bit tacky? You bet. But to a parent that can see God in the eyes of their child (and may he curse those who cannot), such considerations of cool-ness are none to even ponder.
Whether they rock for angry young metalheads or soccer moms, Live at least seems certain of that which will inspire them. No amount of hand wringing over declining record sales and low attendance figures can change that. And the kind of passion Live still feels can ignite a fire at any time.Don't count this band out yet.
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