Ed Kowalczyk Rejuvenated By Solo Career (article) Options

[Pokey]

so the other 3 guys "wasted" 10 years of their life just because they were "friends" with ed since childhood? come on guys, its ok to hate ed, i suppose, and bash everything he does on every single thread on this message board but dont make the other three guys out to be mother theresa..they stayed in the band because it was a steady pay check and didnt have the balls to stand up for themselves until another option, ala the gracious few, came up. that cant be debated.

I definitely wouldn't say they're Mother Theresa .. Nick asked me in another thread if I'd have done the same in their situation. I answered that it depends on the length of this contract Ed wanted them to sign, if it was for a certain amount of time or albums then I probably would, if it were a "from here on in.." thing then I'd not have signed.

It's a bit heartless to say "oh well, you guys signed it, tough shit". They shouldn't have been put in that position in the first place by their friend. I fail to see that after so long making music together they'd all just agree willingly to give up writing music for the band which is effectivly what they were doing. So signing must have been a difficult decision and I'm sure fights must have come about because of it. The image some people seem to have here of TGF grabbing the papers and signing just so they could get onto easy street and make money some money still for less work is crazy.

[mattyeagles]

and one more thing - very suprised people arent outraged that the other 3 members would openly mock ed on stage during some of the new songs. i agree that the new songs lacked a lot of the passion and quality of the older songs but settle your differences backstage, like men, and dont overtly mock or dominish the quality of the concert for the people who used their hard earned money to pay for the seats at the shows. to me, that was disrespectul to the fans. settle your issues and differences behind closed doors and not on the stage, on twitter, on facebook etc. we're talking about men in their mid 30s, not 16 year old girls.

[tiger]

Ha ha. I just love the arguments that C,C & P only wanted to continue Live to ride the gravy train. I'd hardly call 10% riding the gravy train, 70% though, that's another thing.

[Pokey]

and one more thing - very suprised people arent outraged that the other 3 members would openly mock ed on stage during some of the new songs. i agree that the new songs lacked a lot of the passion and quality of the older songs but settle your differences backstage, like men, and dont overtly mock or dominish the quality of the concert for the people who used their hard earned money to pay for the seats at the shows. to me, that was disrespectul to the fans. settle your issues and differences behind closed doors and not on the stage, on twitter, on facebook etc. we're talking about men in their mid 30s, not 16 year old girls.

That just again would depend on your point of view. I haven't seen the shows or video of them mocking Ed on stage so its hard to comment exactly without knowing what they did. But if everything they are saying is true then I'd say Ed deserves it. Even without knowing it at the time if I personally was at the show I'd probably get a laugh out of it. Even before the whole split happend a lot of people here were pretty sick of Ed. But from someone else's point of view I can see how they'd be upset.
But god damnit it's rock n roll, or at least it should be. People are totally soft here ... guy steals money from his life long friends and some people are more concerned about how those friends react to it? They should be able to say or do whatever they want (again so long as it's legal).
No one should be able to say "oh Ed's not talking about it in public, he's taken the moral high ground" .. if the dude has done what is accused of him he has no moral high ground.

[mattyeagles]

agreed that its rock and roll - most lead singers become assholes/like meeting girls after concerts/do drugs..lets not act like this is the first time this has happened

i, like everyone else here, put live up to a much higher standard so all of this is extremely disappointing and upsetting, but not shocking

[mattyeagles]

also, 99% of the people who go to the concerts dont go on fansoflive.com, and are there because they remember live from back in the day. they arent up to speed on how big of an "asshole" ed is and the catfights behind the scenes. they are at the concert to see a band put forth the best show possible and when the other 3 were mocking ed on stage, they werent putting forth that effort.

[Sakhmet2]

we're talking about men in their mid 30s, not 16 year old girls.

Late thirties, actually. Pushing 40.
Pat was 39 at end of May, Ed and Chad G will be 29 next month, Chad T. will be 40 in Nov.

[tiger]

also, 99% of the people who go to the concerts dont go on fansoflive.com, and are there because they remember live from back in the day. they arent up to speed on how big of an "asshole" ed is and the catfights behind the scenes. they are at the concert to see a band put forth the best show possible and when the other 3 were mocking ed on stage, they werent putting forth that effort.

Saw one of their last shows in May 2009 and it was awesome. The place was packed, and the energy was great. Got to see Hold Me Up, which just killed. Also saw Ed's attempt at rocking out with Believe and it was just awkward, as was Forever. There was clearly one guys who's effort was not up to par on those songs, and it wasn't C,C or P. The rest of the show rocked.

[Pokey]

also, 99% of the people who go to the concerts dont go on fansoflive.com, and are there because they remember live from back in the day. they arent up to speed on how big of an "asshole" ed is and the catfights behind the scenes. they are at the concert to see a band put forth the best show possible and when the other 3 were mocking ed on stage, they werent putting forth that effort.

This is true, but at the same time like I mentioned before the split happend a lot of people were getting sick of Ed. This had nothing to do with legality issues or anything like that, it was purely his writing, singing, performance whatever... I don't think you'd need the whole backstory to unfold to start having a negative opinion of Ed.
I remember when my Dad first heard The River, he doesn't read online message boards or anything like that and his first comment was something like "Has Ed joined the backstreet boys?".

I'd argue that for me seeing 3 of the guys mocking Ed would actually by that stage have enhanced the show, I'd probably be getting butterflys in my stomach going "whoa maybe they actually don't like this Mystery-eeeeeeee-EEEEE" shit after all! I'm sure they wern't openly mocking him the whole show, I've seen clips of them playing Iris, Gas Hed, Top .. and whilst they did look pretty disinterested the music still sounded good.

To me Ed prancing about the stage with his shitty little dance moves and such from the past few years, that ruined the show more and that's got nothing to do with any money being stolen.

[crazy1]

No one should be able to say "oh Ed's not talking about it in public, he's taken the moral high ground" .. if the dude has done what is accused of him he has no moral high ground.

Excellent point!


When did they mock Ed? I was at the last show....

[Pokey]

From memory Nick said something like they all stood in a group laughing or something. So whilst I haven't seen it to make a proper judgement, if it was something like that then they could have been laughing at ANYTHING. I mean, did they all wear Ed masks with dollar symbols in the eyes? Did they push him over, did they spit on him? How bad and obvious was this mocking exactly?

[mattyeagles]

i was at the concert - def were mocking ed and no they werent wearing ed masks

[crazy1]

From memory Nick said something like they all stood in a group laughing or something. So whilst I haven't seen it to make a proper judgement, if it was something like that then they could have been laughing at ANYTHING. I mean, did they all wear Ed masks with dollar symbols in the eyes? Did they push him over, did they spit on him? How bad and obvious was this mocking exactly?

At one point they were standing together...well Gracey was sitting! Who is to say they were openly mocking anyone?!

[sallyinpa]

so the other 3 guys "wasted" 10 years of their life just because they were "friends" with ed since childhood? come on guys, its ok to hate ed, i suppose, and bash everything he does on every single thread on this message board but dont make the other three guys out to be mother theresa..they stayed in the band because it was a steady pay check and didnt have the balls to stand up for themselves until another option, ala the gracious few, came up. that cant be debated.

There was no Gracious Few prior to the "end" of LIVE. Chad, Chad and Pat are very talented all on their own. Anyone of the three could make a nice living without the others. It is, infact, friendship that kept them together. I personally find it difficult to understand why that concept is so hard for people to understand. Think what you will but that's the truth!

[sallyinpa]

i was at the concert - def were mocking ed and no they werent wearing ed masks

I was there too and I didn't see it that way. A wise person once told me that the way you see things depends on where you are standing. Hmmmm, fairly intuitive