I should have known.....Cleveland show Options

[mattdm11]

I'll start by saying I'm a hater. I can admit it. I like V more than most. BOP is decent. SFBM is half good half trash. But none of it is 90s Live. TGF and The Turn are way better than all of it. Hell, Goose Blackburn or whatever it's called is better. Ed bothers me, even if he wasn't really the wackadoo behind the breakups. Throwing Copper is a top 2-3 album all time for me, TDTH is also a top 10. So as others have said, I'm a "lifer" (liver?) to come to the board. But I'm a realist, this band is done and is at best a bunch of hired guns to play the hits to get Ed some more cash.

That being said, I still forked over too much money to see them in Cleveland last weekend. It was just a few minutes from my GFs house. I figured I hadn't seen them since 2006, and even though it's just Ed......fine.

It was sort of sad, it's not a big venue and I would guess it was 70% full at best. Some entire rows empty. The show was exactly what I expected. Most of the hits, plus Iris (perhaps the best song on TC) and The Distance. And two new songs....the she bhangs song (I thought that was Ricky Martin, maybe it's different because Ed is singing about water again) and some song about leaving the radio on. It was an average Ed performance, he spoke very little, he almost seemed out of it, and he has really bad dance moves. The rest of the band was ok (the bassist is pretty annoying, he looks like Captain Caveman on roids). What really bugged me was he talked about celebrating the last show of the tour or something, mentioned it twice.....dudes played for only 80 minutes. Went on at 8pm sharp, at around 9pm they break into White, Discussion....I said to my GF, wow, WD mid set! That's crazy! They finish WD....and they were done. Came back out for a 15 minute encore.....lights came on before 9:30.

Again, I get it, why would I go if I felt like this, why am I posting this.....I don't know. I spent way too much money on a very short, very bland, and mostly uninspired show. Don't get me wrong, I love the music, I forgot how much I love Lakini's Juice.....but I'm trying to rekindle a feeling in this band that just isn't there anymore. Unless the original four get back together, that was my last Live show. They are tainting the memory so bad. I told my GF they are on a very similar path to the Simpsons. From 89-99 they really couldn't do any wrong. Classic stuff, some of the best TV I've ever seen. Now, Maude Flanders is dead, Apu, Dr. Hibbert and many others have different voices, and most importantly, the show is uninspired, not funny, and should be sent to the glue factory. It's my exact feelings about this "band". I'll continue to enjoy the old music, hope for more old releases, maybe one day get a TDTH deluxe reissue....and forget about what they have become. (I mean seriously, have you tried watching a Simpsons episode lately? YIKES!)

Anyway, sorry to be a negative bastard. Pains me to write it, it really does.

(PS - didn't realize the Goose album has both of Live's new songs..... I put it on while I typed this.)

[dangum]

Continue discussion here:

Northfield, OH (MGM Northfield Park) - October 11, 2025