[Article] Live promises spirited show at Rock Fest, Leader-Telegram (Eau Claire, WI) Options

[brianblank]

No real news in this article, but this quote contradicts what Gracey told me last week:

The band expects to release a new studio album in 2009

http://www.leadertelegram.com/story-featur...?id=BH6L2QD5E93

[Existentialist]

I don't have time to read the rest of his bullshit!

[SJN1279]

Live promises spirited show at Rock Fest

By Josh Johnson
Leader-Telegram staff
"Expect the unexpected."

That's what Ed Kowalczyk, vocalist of the alternative rock band Live, advised fans who will attend the group's performance Saturday at Rock Fest near Cadott.

Live enjoys playing outside during the summer, Kowalczyk said in a recent phone interview.

"Playing outside anywhere in the summertime, it's an extra jolt of happiness for the crowd," he said.

Saturday will be the band's second visit to Rock Fest following a 2006 appearance.

Rock Fest attendees should expect to hear songs spanning Live's 17-year recording career. Those who know the band from the 1994 multiplatinum album "Throwing Copper" and 1997's "Secret Samadhi" likely will hear familiar tunes, but some of the band's more recent material may make the set list.

"We try to keep it interesting," Kowalczyk said. "We try to play the hits but also for the fans who have seen a lot of shows."

Fresh off filming its first concert DVD in Amsterdam, Live has begun a six-week tour of the U.S. with fellow '90s hit-makers Blues Traveler and Collective Soul. The tour has been enjoyable so far, Kowalczyk said, and he hopes to bring Blues Traveler's frontman and harmonica virtuoso John Popper on stage during one of Live's performances.

It's been a long road for the York, Pa.-based band, which was propelled to prominence in the mid-1990s by hits such as "Lightning Crashes" and "Selling the Drama." Live continues to enjoy international success.

The group has maintained its original lineup - frontman Kowalczyk, guitarist Chad Taylor, bass player Patrick Dahlheimer and drummer Chad Gracey - since 1985, formally adopting the name Live in the early '90s.

"It's a combination of things," Kowalczyk said of the group's longevity. "In general, people really appreciate our chemistry together and where we're from. People just feel we're a real band. One of the charter reasons we got together is that we make real music for real people."

Kowalczyk, who has painted the band's lyrics with a hue of Eastern spirituality over the years, said his inspiration doesn't stem from one source.

"It's life in general both on and off the road," he said. "Staying focused on the things I'm interested in: spirituality, meditation, my family. It all kind of feeds into one blob."

The band expects to release a new studio album in 2009, Kowalczyk said. Live's last studio album was 2006's "Songs From Black Mountain." Its most recent offering is 2007's "Radiant Sea," an album of bootlegs that span the band's career.

Johnson can be contacted at 830-5841 or josh.johnson@ecpc.com.


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