LIVE Live in Tampa

Last week I took the 4 hour round trip car ride to Tampa to see my all-time favorite band play. It has been about 6 years since I last saw Live play and this time is going to make it my 5th Live-going experience. As I ride along with Sean, smiling from ear to ear in anticipation, I think back to my 4 earlier Live shows.

The first time I saw them I was 17. They were touring for their Throwing Copper album. My best friend Jaime and I went alone (yeah, no parents) to see them at Wings Stadium in Kalamazoo. I remember very little of this show, except I ran into an old friend, Chris Carling, how I hadn't seen since 4th grade. I do remember one very traumatic thing however, this was the concert I was going to "ride the crowd." I was apparently too far back in the crowd to accomplish this. I asked some guy to hoist me up. I leaned back, anticipating unknown hands to carry me away. That did not happen. I fell flat on my back on the cold hard ground. I stood up quickly and pretended to laugh it off. Inside I felt like a total loser and have never tried to "surf" the crowd again.

I wouldn't see them again until the summer of 1999. This time I got to experience it with the man I loved. We packed up our two dogs and drove to Ft. Wayne, IN and watched from the seats, no stand for us.

About 6 months later we saw them at the State Theater in Detroit. This turned out to be the best concert I have ever seen, even to this day. The theater was the perfect atmosphere for a live concert it was one of those old movie theaters transformed into a mini-area. Sean and I were in the balcony looking down. Ed Kowalcheck had just started getting buff. There were these annoying girls who wouldn't sit and were just standing there dancing around like idiots pissing off everyone else around them. So Sean threw his empty cup of ice at them. Oh, they were pissed, but our goal was achieved, they sat and didn't dance for the rest of the concert. The best part of this show was when they play "Pillars of Davidson." I can still remember the music pulsing through me, I had closed my eyes to listen to it fully. I felt rather "out-of-body" through the song. It was the most moving, most powerful musical experience I have every felt. There is something about that song that just fills me with a hundreds emotions at one time.

The last time I had seen Live perform was at Pine Knob, when the co-headlined with Counting Crows. This show, though not the best, is one of my top five concerts. This show a more fun rather than moving. Sean and I seat-hoped from the very back row to just behind the soundboard guys (who later gave me the song list). This was the first concert we Bootlegged some video footage. I had snuck my video recorder in (back when video recorders where bulky). I had it in my shorts right under my crotch, under a skirt. I have no idea how I got away with it, I had to have been walking like a baby was about to top out.

When we finally reach Tampa, we have to take a detour to Circuit City. I had stupidly forgotten my digital camera. There was no way I was not getting pictures and film of Ed. We were out of C.C. in 10 minutes with a camera, charger, and picture card. We had already we'd use it tonight and return it the next week...so bad!

We got to Ruth Ekard Hall shortly after Collective Soul had started. I wasn't concerned about missing them. I had seen them in Kalamazoo with my friends Trevor and Jerry. CS had sucked. The singer had been sick...note to bands, when your singer is sick, CANCEL the show because it will suck and I will hate you for wasting my $$$.

However, CS redeemed themselves to me with this night's show. Except for the lead singer's poorly chosen wardrobe, they rocked. They even made me want to go home and pull out my old CS cds to give them another listen. Another hint for band member...skinny jeans are not very flattering for anyone. They'd make Paris Hilton ass look huge and baggy. They are definitely not flattering to a 40 year old rocker, who needs to move and bend a lot, can we say plumbers ass...CS Lead Singer please don't ever where those again, they do not make your ass look tight and cute, more like ginormous and saggy saggy saddlebags. But your singing and energy was fantastic.

At 9:45 Live took the stage. They sound as wonderful as ever. A couple things surprised me. This tour was for their "Songs from Black Mountain" CD and they only played 2 songs from it. At the opposite end of their discography timeline, they played 3 songs from Mental Jewelry (their first album). My only disappointment was that they didn't play "Pillars of Davidson." I was also disappointed they could only play for about an hour. REHall shows have to end at 11pm for some pathetic reason. My biggest highlight came about half way through their set. Ed came out shirtless and he looked gorgeous. I was literally wide-eyes taking him in. Maybe it was because this was the closest I had ever been to him or because it had been so long since I seen him, but I don't think I have ever wanted someones body as much as I did Ed's that night. He is by far my number 1 on my list of celebrates.

The drive home was exhausting, but my shirtless Ed high got me through it. On the ride home I reflected on my own changes in these 13 years since my first Live event. Live's music has been with me through some of my biggest changes in life. "Pillars of Davidson" is always the song I go to in my bouts with depression. The entire Distance to Here album fills me with hope and love and memories of happier times. The V album reminds me of 9/11 and though good, makes me sad. Throwing Copper reminds me of my first steps into Independence. Birds of Prey paints happy scenes of Arkansas, even though there were few. Their newest, Black Mountain, finds me in Florida on yet another chapter of life that involves kids and career and domestic journeys. I only hope that Live will accompany me on many more adventure in life. Live is my church, my conscious, my psychologist, my shoulder to cry on. Here's to Live, thanks for a great show guys.

Steal This Movie

Revolutionary, Liberal, Hippie, Treehugger...I have been given these labels but one type of person or another. In some respects they are probably right. But something that sets me apart for the real people that are labeled these names, is that I won't do anything for a cause. I won't sacrifice my life, my general state of "happiness" for a cause. Now you are probably calling me selfish, but in reality I don't think 1 person can make a difference, I don't think 10 people can, hell, I don't think 1000 people could.

I watched "Steal This Movie" which was a testament to Abbie Hoffman's life. Abbie Hoffman the late-sixties antiwar hero. In a way the movie is inspiring. To so someone who believed in the good of people, believed this could be changed from a grassroots movement. But the movie, inadvertantly, show how fighting the good fight ends up being a waste of time. See, at the end of the movie, Abbie is giving a mvoing speech at another of his trials for protesting. In the speech he relates how he and his fellow "Yippies" stopped a war, put an end to pointless wars like Vietam. That made me pause and wonder what he felt about our current war... well, turns out he died in 89'. So, he never got to witness the disapointment of America engaging, starting another pointless, distructive war.

It just proves to me you can't stop it, war. it is a cycle...you always hear that but it is true. History will forver repeat itself, only the repeated errors will get worse and worse. Abbie went to years and years of hell brought on by goverment spying, only for it to come around again less then 20 years after his death. We didn't learn anything from him or his message. Americans are too complacent to care. Maybe I am just too pessemistic to be a hippie-revolutionary.

The movie also made another brilliant message. Abbie says in the movie that conservatives want to cover everything up, liberals are paralysed because they can see all sides of an argument (which I find to be true for me on some thing). But what I saw of revolutionaries like Hoffman is that they have such high expectations for what life and society could be they can't take the crushing starkness of reality...that government is evil, that most everyday citizens don't care, that people don't want a better world because it would mean change. So these revolutionaries need drugs (illegal and/or perscription) to make there way in a world that doesn't want them.

So, I will have my views, say my peace, correct you misconception....but will try not to sove crap down your throat. I don't want to destroy my life like Hoffman did his for a Country that refuses to agknowledge its problems. More power to people like Hoffman, you have my vote, but I won't join in your ventures.