Yeah, amigo - you're right. Silly me

Ed runs on stage and belts out the opening of Mystery and begins to touch himself, the moms in the front row go wild as the audience filters out, the reunion is a sham

Well, Shinn isn't coming back. It's like alot of you guys would rather Live just retire rather than continuing on with the ORIGINAL singer. We are probably gonna get a new album also, yet some of you guys act like you don't want that to happen, i thought we were all Live fans. We are getting the original 4 and we should be excited.

I think the key thing you seem to be glossing over - that some of us are very concerned about - is that simply having the original singer back in town is by no means a guarantee that any new music will actually be any good. As I've said in other threads, as this point we have close to 20 years of evidence that Ed has lost the ability to make music worthy of the Live name. So in that sense, what exactly do we have to be excited about?

An awesome tour with the original band, and a reconciliation between four friends.

Nothing that Live will ever do with Ed will make these dudes happy. It's truly sad.
Reunited fan base, my ass.
This board is right back to being as ridiculous as it was in 2009.

What a pessimistic and inaccurate post. Why are you here then? Ed co-wrote Like I Do, Lighthouse and a few other good tunes on BoP. That was in 2003. SFBM and the following solo work are not Live. Many of his live performances are very good. Ed still has it. I am sure that if the four of them work as a team the result will be excellent.

The reconciliation is nice enough, sure, but if it leads to disappointing music then... meh. Similarly, although a tour will undoubtedly do more business for them with Ed back in town, if he's still new Ed (with all the smiles, pop singer delivery, lawds and childs) then it's gonna be pretty lame from my perspective. I know you don't care for Chris, but from where I'm sitting he reinvigorated the band and their performances were raw, passionate and authentic again. They need to match that with Ed back in tow, otherwise it's a downgrade for me.



Now now, come on. My concerns are legitimate and I stand by them, but I'm not saying I won't enjoy it if they come out with something worthwhile just cos in your eyes it'd prove me wrong or whatever. If they drop good tunes, I'll be among the first to stand up and say hey, fair play.



Pessimistic, sure. Inaccurate, very debatable. Why am I here? Daft question and you know it.

Since TDTH (where the material was written in 1997/8 - yes?), we've had V which many fans disregard as absolute trash (for the record I've got a big soft spot for it, but it's clearly trashy as fuck). BOP has one or two smudges of decency in amongst a sea of stale tracks where the magic was clearly absent, and everything since is miles off from the real Live level. One or two things along the way (Like I Do, Zion) are exceptions to the rule. The bodies of work, the albums, have fallen of a fucking cliff.

So for me TDTH is the last thing he's done which is truly worth of the Live name. And that was written the best part of 20 years ago.

As for his live performances, some of us don't really like the direction has performing has gone in. Couple that with the aforementioned lack of quality material, and I disagree that he still has it.

This post has been edited by Merica: Nov 19 2016, 9:34 am

I disagree. Ed wrote or co-wrote some great songs in the 2000s. Like I Do, Lighthouse, River town, She, Zion, Believe. To me this means that he can still write good heavy tunes. Ed still has a heavy / raw side like CCP have a light/ mediocre side (i.e. Natural Born Killers). We will see. I am very optimistic. If Live falls short of my expectation then i will move on, there is great music out there.

If you're putting Believe down as evidence that Ed can still write great tunes then we're living on different planets.

I'm not anti Ed or pro Shinn or whatever. I only listened to the Turn once, it wasn't for me. Neither was Ed's solo stuff or the later stuff he did with Live before they split. Excited? I'm more curious. I don't know what to be excited about right now but if they release a banger of a single then maybe I will be.

Oh ok so it was fine when you were shitting on Shinn for 4 years but now it's sad if people hold the opposite opinion. Like Merica said. There is no automatic original line up = amazing, thing going on here. You could get the 1995 Chicago Bulls to play this year in the NBA and they were great in their time,but how is it any guarantee it will suddenly be good again? Again, to gloss over the past 16yrs of poor form with Ed is looking at things with rose tinted glasses on. It's more ridiculous if you put your fanboy hat on and don't look at things realistically. Ed hasn't written a good lyric in over a decade and
his voice is poo...how is that worth getting excited about? Like, I'd be happy being wrong because hey, that would mean new good music to enjoy. But to call people sad and ridiculous because they're following along with form, ugh.

For the 1,000th time, I didn't like the latter years of Live or Ed's solo work either. But I'm not going to sit here and say that he hasn't written a good lyric in 16 years and that his voice is "poo." That is absolutely preposterous. I will honestly agree with you if Ed does something silly, weird, odd, unprofessional, or poor. But I don't drink the Ed-Hater-Aid that you do.-You guys are on a whole other level and it is sad. Also, it IS ridiculous how patronizing you and your bros become when ideas and opinions different from yours are posted. It's like a bunch of school yard bullies when in reality, you are 40 something year old Live fans. I'm getting 2009 PTSD again (and I was
only a lurker here back then).

No, I did not like Shinn. Yes, I have stated my reasons why. But there are others here who hold the exact same opinions. But if not.... whether you love Shinn or love Ed's solo stuff or the albums V, BOP, and SFBM, it's never personal. It's music, for crying out loud.

Geez, maybe the worst thing I ever said here about CS was that he hurt my eyes and I had to minimize the screen when I pulled him up on You Tube. Really? Whaaa!

The other things I've said about him are my perceptions, which again, others have. You and others don't... Good for you. I'm glad he made you happy for a while.

I hope that reunited Live drops a good album. If not, OH WELL. It won't be the end of my world. I'm going to go see them in concert for the first time ever and hopefully, many times after that and I will relish it and be happy that ECCP are brothers again.

But he hasn't written a good lyric or sounded good in that long, which is exactly why quite a few people find it hard to be anything but skeptical about it, let alone the circumstances in which it all arises. And no, pretty much any time I checked in here you were whinging about Chris, you don't just get to go "oh ok now I have what I want no one else should whinge", bugger that.

But you're right, if Live drops a good album - that's great! If not, OH WELL, it won't be the end of the world, I'll move on. But until then, based on all available evidence leading up to this, people are going to ride them hard because they aren't happy with it. Just as you did with Chris, so it's hypocritical to expect otherwise.

No one is bullying you for liking Ed and being optimistic about Live. People are bullying Ed if anything, if you take that personally, then, man... the only thing about you is the eyes closed because it was just the most insanely stupid statement. That aside, I don't think people here care whether you or others really like or are excited about it. Perplexed that you do, but the issue they have is with the band, not the fans really. Stop crying like you're being personally attacked - you're the one getting what you want out of this.

In the end, you hung around here complaining for years when Chris was in the band rather than just ... leaving. Why? Because you held out hope that something like this (Ed coming back) would happen (I'm assuming). So that's all a lot of people are doing now - hanging around maybe holding out hope that it will come good and complaining in the mean time. If it absolutely stinks, I think a lot of people will just leave. If you can't take Ed continuing to cop flak in the mean time then yeah,that's hypocritical. And until then, you can go on being super excited all you want, I don't think I or any Chris fans really care?

I propose we just put each other on ignore because clearly you cannot take any criticism of Ed and that is effecting your ability to enjoy things so that would probably work out best.

This post has been edited by vivapokey: Nov 19 2016, 1:58 pm

Did anyone NOT know what he meant? It wasn't exactly subtle.