R.I.P. LIVE: 1988-2009?

by Bill Palmer

Well, crap. The more things change, the more they… change? In a season of rock band breakups that don’t feel permanent (does anyone really think we won’t see Aerosmith reunited eventually?), this one stings because it sounds more than a little bit real: the band LIVE, which has always been tricky to write about simply because the band’s name is LIVE, the band whose early hits like I Alone and Lightning Crashes still see frequent airplay on rock radio, officially called it quits today. And for a band that’s never been one to flaunt its dirty laundry over the last two decades, today’s announcement from guitarist Chad Taylor is disturbingly ugly if you’re a longtime fan like I am.

First off, you know it’s bad when a band announces its breakup and not every member is even involved in the announcement. I’d known that singer Ed Kowalczyk had been off doing his own thing all year, but that didn’t begin to hint at what was apparently going on behind the scenes. Communicating through attorneys, secret publishing contracts, and the band speaking openly about the possibility of continuing on without their singer. Or as Taylor summed it up in his blog:

“I can’t ever see myself working with Ed, let alone ever being in the same room with him. LIVE was always about the band, when Ed lost sight of that in favor of his own ambitions and goals, our considerable fans base began to sigh a collective yawn.”

Ouch. Not only do I have all seven of their albums (most fans didn’t find the band until their second album and bailed after the third or fourth), I’ve seen this band, uh, live, eight times over the years. The first time was at the old Miami Arena; I’m not even sure if it’s there anymore. The last time was an amphitheater that hadn’t been yet been built the first time I saw them. Ironically, the only time I ever passed on an opportunity to see them was at the Greek Theater in Los Angeles last year, simply because I was “too busy” – and, although I’d have to check the dates to be sure, that may have been their final U.S. show.

Never had the chance to interview any of these guys, never even met them (although I do have a used Chad Gracey drumstick laying around here somewhere), but I still hate to see one of my favorite bands go up in flames in such a malodorous manner. Calling it quits because they got bored would be one thing, as you could always hope that they’d get back together at some point when their collective juices started flowing again. But this is ugly enough, personal enough, that I’d guess the odds are less than fifty percent that we ever see the four of them on stage again. But hearing things like this from the band hints at even darker prospects:

“Ed will no longer be the vocalist for the band LIVE. At this point in time, we have made no official plans to replace him but it is clear that he is no friend of mine or the lifelong fans of LIVE.”

Ugh. Even the implication of LIVE without Ed Kowalczyk makes me wince a little at the thought. The band is their career, it’s the only one that any of them have ever had, so you can’t expect the rest of the band to go work in cubicles just because Ed’s not in the picture. Still, LIVE without Ed? No. Some bands can successfully pull off replacing their lead singer (Journey even made the cover of iProng Magazine after finally finding an inspired replacement for Steve Perry), but only a few ever pull it off – and you generally either have to reach legendary status before losing your singer (see Journey), or be so focused on the guitarist from the start (Santana, Van Halen) that the populace can forgive the change. Give me the hypothetical choice of seeing Ed performing LIVE songs with a new band, or LIVE performing LIVE songs without Ed, and I think I’d have to go with the former. That’s not to minimize the vitality of the other three band members one bit; it’s just that I can’t begin to imagine LIVE with another singer. The voice, the style, the persona are just too unique. Maybe someone with the presence of a Chris Daughtry could pull it off. But the last I checked, he’s busy at the moment. Not to mention selling a whole lot more albums than LIVE has at any point in this decade.

Which explains why even many people who consider themselves to be LIVE fans responded to today’s news with “I didn’t know they were still together.” Still, the music world has lost something today. At a time when you had to be from Seattle to be considered cool in the alt-rock world, they were from nowheresville, Pennsylvania, and never tried to hide that fact. Never afraid to be weird, never afraid to take chances, and never stopped being themselves. Well, musically, at least. As a fan of LIVE, today’s dirty laundry can be safely filed under “things you wish you never knew about the band.” The real bummer, of course, is that the nature of today’s news carries with it a whiff of finality. The thing is, I was absolutely sure that this was one of those bands that I was going to have the opportunity to continue to see in concert until I was old and grey.

Then again, anything is possible. Alice in Chains is back together; even death didn’t stop them. But the ugly, painful details coming out of the LIVE camp today suggest that when it comes to band reunions, some things might be even more difficult to overcome than death itself.

About Bill Palmer

Bill Palmer is Editor in Chief of Beatweek Magazine. His editorial contributions include interviews with musicians and iPhone industry coverage.