Live, Live

I know not a lot of the good old BNU'ers that lurk around here are fans of the American rock band Live, but this weekend was one worth at least a small article in cyberspace.

I'd bought tickets just one of the three shows they were doing at the Palais over the weekend of Friday 13th of October. I was a bit more excited about this tour as opposed to the last few because they were including older material in their setlist. I'll be the first to tell you that their last two albums sucked major balls.
I first saw them in 1997 when I was only 12 and they blew my mind. That was the Secret Samadhi tour, hot off the heels of their success with Throwing Copper, they were the biggest band in the world pretty much. Things took a bit of a slide after that, the next album was still very good but then there has been a huge decrease in their material.
Most people write them off as a christian rock band, or a poor man's U2. But I'd challenge any person with that opinion to see them live at least once to see how you feel then.

Since I am pretty much a complete geek and am part of their message board we had a pre meet on Friday at the Prince of Wales where we drank, drank and drank. There were maybe 12 or so of us from all over Australia. I'm not crazy enough to go interstate to see them.
We made the walk over to the Palais about 8pm making sure that we timed our arrival as Shannon Noll was leaving the stage.
What surprised me though was that we could hear his final song through the doors, and he was singing "what about me?" ... I couldn't believe it! He saved the best till last! Actually it was most likely the only song he did all night, but anyways.

We made our way in and took our places right up near the front, unfortunatly no alcohol was to be had there .. $7 for a bottle of Crown is unfriendly.
Right before they were to come on stage I made a mad dash to the toilets so I wouldn't have to go during the set.
As I passed the sound desk I saw a familiar face talking to one of the bouncers. His name is Jimmy and he is their official photographer, message board moderator and long time friend. I remembered him from last tour so I thought I'd stop by and say hello.
He was a little confused as to who I was, so like always you have to introduce yourself by your internet handle, and then proceed to berate yourself for doing so.
We got into a quick chat and he asked me how many shows I was doing this tour, I told him just the one. It was all I could afford.
He told me to meet him at the box office the next night and he'd get me in tomorrow, pretty sweet!

When the band started they opened with their latest flop single, "Mystery". I can't deny the energy in the room was absolutely fever pitch, as much as I don't like the song it was really difficult not to get into it. They followed it up with the first single from the latest album "The River", which starts with Ed going "La da da da, da da da", I often find myself pondering over what it could mean.
Thankfully the new material stopped their for awhile and we were treated to some absolute gems including songs from their debut album in 1991 like "Mirror Song", "The beauty of grey", and "Pain lies on the riverside".
The huge shock that came for me was the addition of the song I very firstly saw them do back in 1997 called "Rattlesnake". Such a brooding, dark and fucking kick arse song. Why can't they maintain that level of awesomeness in current times?
Ed's voice was in tip top form, he might look a bit of a dick raising his arms in the air trying to be Bono (why the FUCK anyone would want to do that is beyond me). But he sure has a stage presence unlike any other performer I've seen.
The rest of the band are talented, there is no other way to say it.
Guitarist, Chad Taylor loves getting his stomp on. Drummer Chad Gracey is one of the best drummers I have ever seen, it sounds modest on CD, but live I'd put him up there with Lombardo.
Bass player Pat Dahlheimer (hope I spelt that correctly) is the cool laid back one of the group, as a bass player should be. Occassionally breaking out into dancing The Robot.

They did the classics like "Lightning Crashes" and "Lakini's Juice". They finished the night with "White, Discussion", a song about the end of the world. I have never seen a band go for broke more than Live do with this song.

The night ended with more drinks and back to a shared hotel room to crash.

I won't go into the details of the next nights concert or the fact that I got to go to Sunday night's for free.
But before the Saturday show, Jimmy once again found me and told me to meet him in the lobby after the show.
A group of us were all in the lobby of the Palais when he approaches us and takes us around the side of the building and down a flight of steps into a room where I was sure the gas would start eminating from the air vents.
As usual I was wrong and Ed's bald head appeared at the door and before I knew it I was shaking his hand and not knowing what the fuck.
The band are a real nice bunch of guys, I chatted with Chad Taylor for maybe 5-10mins about what I do for a living. Why the hell he wanted to know about my life was beyond me, he remembered me from the last tour though.
So photos were taken and things were signed.

Then we were on our way back to Jimmy's hotel room but made a stop off at the guitar tech's room where their sound guy was there too. So with 6 or so Aussies and 3 Yanks we polished off a lot of alcohol and a lot of other stuff too. I got into drinking a whole bottle of .. something on my own and then passed out on the floor. Apparently there are pictures of me passed out too. Next thing I knew I was back in my hotel room, I have no recollection of getting there at all but hey, it was good fun!

This is probably a poorly written review with not a lot of depth, but I'm still pretty hung over I think and I haven't touched a drop since Saturday night.
I guess the main point of this is that Live does rock.