Live back in Hershey!!, 8/1/08 Options

[SJN1279]

Live, Collective Soul and Blues Traveler will be at the Giant Center on August 1st! More info TBA!

[Tina]

Don't they know that they can only do Saturday and Sunday dates in Pennsylvania! Thank God I can do the August 8th show.

[SJN1279]

6/24/2008 - Live with Collective Soul and Blues Traveler Headed to GIANT Center

(HERSHEY, PA) — PA-natives Live is headlining this incredible bill, which will come to GIANT Center on Friday, August 1 for a 6:30 p.m. show. Tickets go on sale Saturday, June 28 at 10 a.m.

With a slew of No. 1 albums and singles in their collection, the Ed Kowalczyk-led rockers released Radiant Sea: A Collection of Bootleg Rarities and Two New Songs last year, which features live tracks of fan favorites like “I Alone,” “The Distance” and “The Dolphin’s Cry” as well as two new, exclusive songs.

Collective Soul, a band that has gained national and international acclaim during their impressive career, had 19 songs reach the Billboard charts and seven of them hit No. 1 on the radio charts. Collective Soul’s latest album, Afterwards, debuted in the Top 25 on Billboard and was a Top 10 on iTunes.

Fans of the John Popper-led Blues Traveler admire their unique sound, which features rock ‘n’ roll while being deeply rooted in blues. Showcasing their unmistakable sound is Popper – the harmonica virtuoso himself. His instrumental solos in songs like “Run Around,” for example, left the single on the charts for nearly a full year and sent the album Four into 5x-platinum status. In 2007 they released, Cover Yourself, a collection of previous hits reworked with acoustic arrangements.

For more information on Live, visit friendsoflive.com.
For more information on Collective Soul, visit their page at collectivesoul.com.
For information Blues Traveler, visit bluestraveler.com.

HERSHEYPARK Concert Deal: Ride the day away at HERSHEYPARK before you rock and roll all night! HERSHEYPARK offers a special discounted admission price of just $28.95 to concert go-ers when using a Park ticket on the day of the concert. Just present your concert ticket at the HERSHEYPARK Front Gate the day of the concert to receive the discount. NEW! Purchase Park tickets at GIANT Center Box Office when you purchase your concert tickets.

Tickets for this show are $45.00, $39.50, and $29.50 (processing fees apply and eight ticket limit) and are available at GIANT Center Box Office. They can be charged by phone at 717-534-3911 or 717-260-2000, at all Ticketmaster locations, and online at Ticketmaster.com. The wristband policy will be in effect for this concert. Fans are permitted on the HERSHEYPARK Entertainment Complex property beginning at 7 a.m. on Saturday, June 28. Two hours prior to the on-sale, fans are directed in front of GIANT Center Box Office, where they are issued a numbered wristband. Wristbands are available for one hour, and at the conclusion of that hour, a selected fan will randomly select a wristband that will determine the line order. For example: if 1,000 wristbands are issued during that hour and the number 500 is selected, the person wearing wristband 500 will be the first person in line. Numbers 501 to 1,000 will proceed in line behind, followed by numbers 1 through 499. Once the line is in place, everyone arriving after the wristbands were issued will be escorted to the end of the numbered line.

[WaiterAtCliftons]

Anyone know if this is going to be GA or Seats on the floor? I kinda hope seats. I hate having to use the restroom and fight your way back through a crowd anymore.

[SJN1279]

Anyone know if this is going to be GA or Seats on the floor? I kinda hope seats. I hate having to use the restroom and fight your way back through a crowd anymore.

It is all seated.

[WaiterAtCliftons]

Any word on the order of the bands? Please tell me Collective Soul is going on first? I really wanna see Blues Traveler but I might have to work til 6 and it takes me about 20-30 minutes to get there. URG.

[Hoodstock]

Any word on the order of the bands? Please tell me Collective Soul is going on first? I really wanna see Blues Traveler but I might have to work til 6 and it takes me about 20-30 minutes to get there. URG.

Just look at how it's listed. Whoever appears last on the ticket is first. I think CS is only playing second about 4 times on the tour. It's mostly BT.

[SJN1279]

Notes from Hershey:

-My seats were at the side of the stage which gave me a great view, but it was sometimes difficult to make out Ed's lyrics with the speaker placement

-The band was really on its game, and enjoyed the hell out of the hometown show.

-The crowd was packed on the floor and about little more than half full on the lower level of the arena. It was a good size crowded that responded well to Live.

-Same setlist as NYC with the exception of Iris in place of Run to the Water

-Highlight of the show was the band bringing all their kids on stage to dance during Heaven. Pat looked to be especially having fun with the kiddies.

-Hersheypark is awesome, if you get a chance and like theme parks make sure you hit this gem in PA

-Tired as hell, but off to Musikfest. More soon!

[brianblank]

Intelligencer Journal
Rolling with the changes
Returning to the area for a show in Hershey, Live frontman talks about a shifting industry
http://articles.lancasteronline.com/local/4/225312

The music industry now demands that musicians think creatively not only about their songs but also about their careers.

The industry, shaken by the digital revolution that has replaced the brick-and-mortar marketplace with a bazaar that exists in the thin wire of computer lines, is changing so quickly that it's hard for musicians to keep up.

It has forced musicians like Ed Kowalczyk, the lead singer for Live, which got its start at the Chameleon Club, to consider the band's career in an entirely different light.

"A big part of the transition for me personally over the last few years is to think about the music business and think about music in a whole different way," he said before a recent concert in Seattle. "Nobody's really had to do that before, especially in the middle of a career. It's pretty crazy but it's also really exciting."

Live, one of the biggest bands of the 1990s, built its career on the strength of its second album, "Throwing Copper" (1994). The phenomenally successful album sold millions and millions of copies, yielded hit single after hit single and landed the four band members, all natives of York, on the cover of Rolling Stone.

It's inconceivable to even consider that Live, which will perform tonight in Hershey, could repeat that success 14 years later. Actually, it's inconceivable that any artist could enjoy that kind of success as the album, the essential building block of music careers for the past 40 years, is no longer the dominant vehicle for delivering music. Many go as far as to predict the imminent demise of the album.

"I was always a big believer in the album because the album was the thing," Kowalczyk said. "You didn't really write singles, you took people on a journey through 12 or 13 songs. That, in and of itself, has kind of disintegrated to some degree. People are buying songs one by one and the whole thing is broken up in a million pieces.

"It's a breakdown in the way I thought about albums and bands forever and ever, but it's also an opportunity to move into the future."

Kowalczyk and his band mates — Chad Taylor (guitar), Patrick Dahlheimer (bass) and Chad Gracey (drums) — haven't settled on a strategy as they move forward. The band is currently without a recording contract and has the freedom to dictate its direction.

Kowalczyk said he's intrigued by the notion of releasing EPs consisting of four or five songs on a more frequent basis than albums. He said he's excited by the immediacy of music these days, the ability to record a song and deliver it over the Internet almost instantaneously.

The singer-songwriter, however, believes a veteran band like Live, which will release its first live DVD/CD in October, needs to first make sure its creative juices are still flowing and then worry about how to deliver its music.

"How I feel about being in a band is that you keep growing," Kowalczyk said. "It's a growth mechanism. The status quo gets real nasty real fast and you just get bored. It doesn't jibe with who I am as a person. And I know I speak for all of us."

Though the members of Live have been together for more than 20 years, Kowalczyk, who now lives in California, said it's still meaningful to return to central Pennsylvania and play for its fans here.

"It's still special, a lot of memories," he said. "There's a lot of places we don't get to see as often as we used to. It's still special, something I look forward to. It puts everything in perspective — where we're from, where we've been, where we're going."

Live, Collective Soul and Blues Traveler, today, 6:30 p.m., Giant Center, Hershey, $29.50-$40, 534-3911.

E-mail: jferguson@lnpnews.com

[Jennyfoo]

Is this where I'm supposed to post pictures?

There a quite a few of the kids on stage during Heaven 'cause I thought that was absolutely frickin' adorable.

[Jennyfoo]

[Jennyfoo]

[LiveRoCkS77]

Great pictures!!! Thanks for sharing!

[tswart1]

Just look at how it's listed. Whoever appears last on the ticket is first. I think CS is only playing second about 4 times on the tour. It's mostly BT.

Damnit. According to that, Blues Traveler is closing the Baltimore show and Live is opening.

[SJN1279]

http://articles.lancasteronline.com/local/4/225436
Live still pleases crowd, no matter how smallLancaster New Era
Published: Aug 04, 2008
12:21 EST
Hershey
ArticlePhotosMapRelatedShare ItDon't Link Tags
By JOHN DUFFY, CorrespondentThe closest thing to a hometown show and Live couldn't fill a small hockey arena Friday night. Bringing along Blues Traveler and Collective Soul — two other bands whose hit-making days are a decade gone — didn't help.
Singer Ed Kowalczyk (left) joins Chad Taylor on guitar during Live's show. 1 of 2
Singer Ed Kowalczyk of Live performs in Hershey on Friday night. 2 of 2
Maybe it's too early for 1990s nostalgia.

After all, folks who came of age, went to college and found plenty of well-paying jobs in the booming mid-90s now face the demands of family and career in an economy that is turning Generation X into Generation Foreclosure.

So it may be understandable that the Giant Center was barely over half full for a triptych of Clinton-era hitmakers — even if one of them was local favorite Live, whose members hail from York and got their start at Lancaster's Chameleon Club.

It didn't help that not one of the bands had new material to support. Collective Soul put out an album available only at Target over a year ago, and Blues Traveler hasn't had anything new out in four years, only a collection of acoustic versions of their hits.
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Similarly, Live's "Radiant Sea" is an odds and ends collection.

But all three marquee bands, by now seasoned enough to be able to pull off a good gig in a bad situation, played for the crowd that was there, not the one they could have drawn a decade ago.

When Live took the stage shortly after 9 p.m. it was a sure thing that even though a disappointing number of seats were left empty, the ones that mattered were the ones filled.

Blasting through hits and an impressive number of favorites one came to the understanding that this group's catalog was richer than their latest sales figures reveal.
Related Topics
concert (615) review (179) Live (4)

"I Alone," "Simple Creed" and "All Over You" connected with ragged fury, even if at first singer Ed Kowalczyk's vocals sounded shrill and distorted. (Granted, his piercing voice is probably not an easy one to mix.)

"Selling the Drama" rang true with its anthemic chorus, and their version of Johnny Cash's "Walk the Line" had a cleverly inverted re-arrangement.

But Live is a band that has had to find out how to grow up and approach middle age with grace and still somehow stand by its youthful rage. It has not been an easy transition, one marked with missteps into vague Eastern spiritualism.

Live still gets airplay on hard rock and adult contemporary stations (that pays the mortgages for sure), but wide acclaim and credibility for a band that goes from sales of 8 million ("Throwing Copper") to less than 100,000 ("Songs From Black Mountain") is hard to come by.

But as the cliché goes, they are still big in Europe.

The more mature Live was represented by Kowalczyk's wedding song "Turn My Head," the U2-soundalike "Stood Up for Love" and the perennially popular dirge "Lightning Crashes."

As for the other acts, Blues Traveler frontman John Popper led his band through jammy versions of their hits, and showed that even though his caterwauling harmonica sound may have become dated and annoying, he can still play with plenty of power and originality.

Collective Soul, who came to the stage late due to bus trouble, crammed their set into an abbreviated rundown of hits and the ones that could have been. "December" featured three guitars and a heavier arrangement than the hit single. "The World I Know" lost the strings and its preciousness to became an arena-rock power ballad.

Three has-been bands grinding out their decade-old hits not enough for you? How about a throwback cover singer in between?

Enter adorable Hana Pestle, who held the crowd rapt with versions of Alanis Morissette's "Ironic" and Radiohead's "Creep" during set changes.

But what really stole the show, and the entire night to be fair, was when the six kids of the Live band members came up onstage for "Heaven," the song wherein Kowalczyk reveals that all the pent up rage of his youth and spiritual searching of early adulthood is finally vanquished in the eyes of his daughters.

The kids, between the ages of about 5 and 11, danced, played air guitar and in general looked quite at home rocking out with their dads.

As if to declare exactly where the band's future is, and indeed his own, Kowalczyk sang the song while holding his 6-year-old daughter. Corny? Sure. Sentimental and a little bit tacky? You bet.

But to a parent that can see God in the eyes of their child (and may he curse those who cannot), such considerations of cool-ness are none to even ponder.

Whether they rock for angry young metalheads or soccer moms, Live at least seems certain of that which will inspire them.

No amount of hand wringing over declining record sales and low attendance figures can change that. And the kind of passion Live still feels can ignite a fire at any time.

Don't count this band out yet.