Ecstatic Fanatic CD with different tracks Options

[BrokenGlass]

Back when my dad was alive, he worked for MCA. Whenever demos or early pressings of albums by bands I liked came across his desk, he would have his secretary make a copy for me. She would handwrite the track listings on the sleeve and everything.

I was a big Live fan before I went to college and one of the last things my dad brought home for me was a demo called "Ecstatic Fanatic" by Live. I listened to it a few times, forgot it at the house when I left for college in Boston, and basically forgot it until now.

Last week, a friend and I were talking about bands we loved in the '90s and Live came up. He was telling me all about how the band broke up, etc, etc. I asked what he thought of "Ecstatic Fanatic" since it was the last album I heard, and he had no idea what I was talking about.

We Googled it and found on Wikipedia that "Ecstatic Fanatic" was the original name for "V," which isn't uncommon at all. A LOT of the stuff my dad brought home had different names when they were finally distributed.

But the track listing for "V" didn't look right to me, and when I downloaded it from iTunes, the album didn't "sound" right to me, either.

I made the drive home last week and dug my "Ecstatic Fanatic" out of storage. I popped it into my computer and I was right, it sounds a lot different than "V" and there are tracks on "Ecstatic Fanatic" that aren't on "V" (and there are also a few tracks on "V" that aren't on "Ecstatic Fanatic" from what I can tell).

This is the track listing for "Ecstatic Fanatic" that I have:

"Tibetan Thunderstorm"
"Like a Soldier"
"People Like You"
"Deep Enough"
"Creed"
"Transmit Your Love"
"Fool"
"Flow"
"Cheetah"
"Overcome"
"I Am Not OK"
"River Town"

The sound is really different, very guitar heavy and rocking and "raw" if you know what I mean, like demos often are. No keyboards except for the piano on "Tibetan Thunderstorm" and that sounds like a real piano to me.

Anyway, I just thought I'd share since I wasn't sure if this version of the album was generally known to Live fans!

[mfitz804]

I don't really mind V at all. I think it was a weird turn the band took and it was interesting to see how it wound up. Even BOP was ok by me. It was SFBM that to me was just the obvious end of what we knew. That was confirmed by Ed's solo albums, which to me are indistinguishable from SFBM; I sometimes forget which songs are on which.

[+AllOverMe+]

Even though some of us think 'V' sucks, we all wanna hear 'Tibetian Thunderstorm' am i right?

Anyway, i'm one of the fans who likes every album, but i can't deny that Live's music changed after TDTH.

[throwing_cheetahs]

Even though some of us think 'V' sucks, we all wanna hear 'Tibetian Thunderstorm' am i right?

Anyway, i'm one of the fans who likes every album, but i can't deny that Live's music changed after TDTH.

Their music changed on every album, but to me the big change occured after"Secret Samadhi".

TC

[Jim]

Their music changed on every album, but to me the big change occured after"Secret Samadhi".

Ah TDTH...I sometimes think about how different that album could have been. I was lucky enough to see Live play 3 nights in a row at the Chameleon Club back in 1998. This was in between Secret Samadhi and TDTH, and these shows were meant to showcase the new songs that would eventually be on TDTH...or so I had hoped. I still have a setlist I got from the 2nd show of that run, it was given to me by the band's manager. They played so many songs that never got released in any official capacity that it's still a major disappointment to me today. "Still Aroused", "New City", "Change", "Don't Wait"...if these songs were on TDTH it would have been a very different album.

While TDTH is a fine album, I think it could have been better if we got more of these unreleased songs, they were "harder" and more aggressive than a lot of TDTH. Personally I think that if they included more of the "harder" songs on TDTH it could have come close to Throwing Copper in terms of sales and popularity. Then again, this whole Churchbox debacle has shown that we all yearn for that which we cannot have, so maybe I have just hyped up these unreleased songs simply because they are unreleased. Still though, I can recall seeing a somewhat recent interview with Chad and I believe he even says that TDTH could have been a much different album.

In case anyone is interested, here's the songs they played on the 2nd night of those shows, straight from the setlist:

Where Fishes Go
Still Aroused
Sun
Sparkle
Meltdown
All Over You
Face and Ghost
Overcome
Turn My Head
Vine Street
New City
I Alone
Don't Wait
Change
Stood Up For Love