Live Album: “Awake: The Best of Live [CD & DVD]”

With many greatest hits albums, you just have a collection of songs from albums you already own (provided you're a big fan), and there's not much reason to buy it unless you're new to the band. However, Live's new greatest hits package holds something for everyone.

At over 70 minutes in length, the album contains tracks from all 6 of Live's studio releases, including nearly half of "Throwing Copper". The song selection is excellent, and I don't think that anything important was left out (I would have put "Simple Creed" on there instead of "Nobody Knows", but that's it). But wait, there's more. In addition to this fine collection of old favorites, we get new stuff as well, including a new version of the rare track "Dealing Dreams" (now entitled "We Deal in Dreams"), an alternate version of "Run Away", featuring guest vocals from Shelby Lynne, and a cover of Johnny Cash's "I Walk the Line". And, if all of that weren't enough, you also get a bonus DVD, with all of the band's music videos.

This is a damn fine buy, whether you're already into Live or not. Highly recommended.

Ok, I admit that I pratically "grew up" with Live. I've watched Ed grow chest hairs for goodness sakes. We're about the same age, and I remember being in my very early twenties and hearing Mental Jewelry for the first time, sitting lotus style in a studio apartment in Northern California, my mouth full of coffee as I was reading poetry.

I was mesmorized. And I still am, over ten years later.

I didn't think a band could move me this much. I waited in anticipation for every new album to arrive so I could devour it, each song serving as a delicacy for my ears.

While I have loved them and cite them as a "favorite" band for over a decade now, I must admit with the one review on here that I wasn't as in to their albums after Secret Samadhi. But I still was a devoted follower, always choosing at least one or two songs that I could claim as my own. V was really my least favorite, to be honest.

So when I read on their website that "Awake" was coming out--to include a DVD of their videos--I was beyond ecstasy. I probably ran--I can't remember, it is all a blur now--to the record store and snatched up the last one. I think it's glued to the CD player in my computer as we speak.

Intricate song-writing, even if obscure at times, will draw you in, coupled with a musical style that is all their own. I don't care what others say, Live is a class-act who can not really be compared to anyone else. Maybe I'm biased because their music was just always "there" during my twenty-something years, as I became a witness to their harnessing maturity as well as myself. I just hope they keep rocking for years to come. Buy this record: you won't regret it.

I'd call this the perfect time for a Live hits album, and if ever there was a disc of theirs to top "Throwing Copper", this is it. "Awake" is great because it includes 19 tracks, and they're in chronological order, and of course for the music itself. Everything is here from "Pain Lies On The Riverside", "Lightning Crashes", "Lakini's Juice", "Dolphin's Cry", and "Overcome". Plus the cover of "I Walk The Line", and the unreleased track "We Deal In Dreams". The only song I miss is "Freaks". Overall it's a great collection from one of the better bands of the past 10-15 years.

Awake shows that Live is still awake and ready to make wonderful music. This album is excellent; a must for all Live's fans. Awake includes songs from all albums putting Live's history in the context of a music album. To me, Live's second release "Throwing Copper" is a phenomenon; I don't think that a human being will ever be able to make such a unique rock album that combines sophisticated lyrics, catchy melodies, powerful sound and beautiful voice. The Distance To Here and Secret Samadhi come hand in hand as Live's second best, albeit the obvious difference in terms of how they sound. Birds of Pray is much better than V, and Mental Jewelry has some very good songs. If this album was not acoustic but of heavy sound like Throwing Copper it would be fantastic. V is experimental. When I first listened to it, I almost cried. However, four years later I must admit that there are some songs that I really enjoy: Deep enough, Transmit your love, Forever may not be long enough, Overcome and Hero of love.

Live is one of the most underrated bands ever. Apart from the excellent sound, lyrics and voice that are identified in their songs, Live is unique for its complexity and variation. There are other good bands out there but most suffer from the lack of variation.

Based on some songs that have been leaked, Live's upcoming album sounds more like Birds of Pray, but still is different and catchy; enjoy on the 21st of March.

I loved this anthology; especially the difference in selections between the DVD (what an extra,especially for those of us who missed the brief eras when LIVE actually had videos in circulation on MTV/VH1!) and the CD. The former reflected more video-related hits (a far different media than radio),while the second reflected the radio hits, and therefore there were some different offerings on display. I especially enjoyed the alternate video for 'Turn My Head', as the originally released offering never to my mind captured the spirit of the song the way this alternate does. That, and you get to see Ed with HAIR!!! That's a novelty in itself, man! The new offering, 'We Deal In Dreams' was a nice teaser for what sort of music would be oncoming with the new album 'Songs From Black Mountain', while the Johnny Cash cover was a nice tribute and a good rendition, bringing out some melodic/lyrical qualities to the song that I would never have noticed in the original. The duet with Shelby Lynne in 'Birds of Pray's 'Run Away' was well-timed and very much heightens the impact of the song, and the alternate video for 'Heaven' was such a different interpretation (I would not have chosen that song as the main single from 'Pray', opting instead for the powerful and raw 'SHE'...but that's just my personal favourite from that album) helped me to get over the overexposure of the radio-play of that song to where I could enjoy it for itself. The inclusion of the 'Mental Jewelry' songs helped many folk realize there was life in LIVE before 'Throwing Copper', and established a sort of lyrical and musical continuum for the band that was missing before in many perceptions; so these were a great inclusion.

A lot of people (read: critics) slam the band for,(A) having an 'inconsistent recording history', or (B) being from the grunge era.

My rebuttal to (A) is: Too many folk in the music business can't seem to get past the biggest selling album disease; they compare all later efforts to the one that broke the charts. I personally wouldn't have remained a LIVE fan of this degree throughout the years if all they had done was release a 'Throwing Copper' clone every couple of years. I happen to LIKE the fact that LIVE gives the money-driven industry the finger and goes on growing and evolving--and letting their music evolve WITH their lives and ideas--without regard to trying to duplicate the public success of their best known effort. This rather punk ethos (for a solid rock band anyway) is called 'not pandering to the moneymen' and 'artistic integrity over public consumption'. The subsequent albums have sold well, though they haven't had the lucky timing that 'Throwing Copper' had to fit so well into what was happening in popular music at the time. Only jaded critics who care only about numbers would call these modest successes 'failures' only because they weren't 'Throwing Copper's with different covers. Far too many bands and artists have been murdered by their labels forcing or pressuring them to recycle, rerecord, and play the same stuff that won them accolades in their breakthrough efforts, regardless of whether they had since grown or changed; in the process losing that edge of anger or wonder or whatever it was that first captured the public imagination. LIVE has chosen to be comfortable with the fans that 'get' them rather than allowing someone to force them into an artistically stultifying mould for the sake of sales alone; this is called 'not selling out', and for that I applaud them.

As for (B): Though they happened to have emerged into the public eye in the same era as Nirvana and Pearl Jam, et al, LIVE never really fit the grunge model with anything but a tendency to ignore the interview and paparazzi angle of business (ie they refused to whore themselves out to the media, instead preferring to concentrate on the MUSIC, shocking though that may be!), and a wonderful sort of ambivalent anger at the socio-religious status quo. This anger was the reason many folk loved 'Throwing Copper', and dislike later albums, in which the anger has faded to a message of Hope and Unconditonal Love. If consistent anger without growth is what these folk are looking for, then obviously a band that grows and changes is not for them. And for those who call lead singer Ed Kowalczyk a Kurt Cobain wannabe; they have obviously never listened for a moment to the lyrics and melodic spirit of his songs anyway.

Which brings me to another main criticism of LIVE. Some folk are turned off by the overt spirituality of Ed's lyrics, calling it 'preachy'. Critics also slam LIVE for their lyrics, saying "if we wanted preaching, we'd go to church". But EddieK is not preaching; he neverdoes. What he is doing is sharing the most intimate moments of his life: the moments when the Spirit touched him and made him whole; and in knowing how that feels, how uplifting it is in a moment of confusion, I find these lyrics inspiring.

As a long-term Live fan, I find them life-altering; and in fact, this fourth album, 'Distance to Here', quite literally saved my life. Many I've spoken to feel the same way; for though Live as a band name is hard to 'google', the FriendsofLive are out there and being uplifted daily by the work the band, and EddieK with his lyrics in particular, do. They make the world better just by being in it...and by being willing to SHARE! If communication and understanding can save the world, then Live are right on the avant guarde, with U2, the Indigo Girls, and a few others.

So all I can say for those critical minds who find Live's lyrics 'pretentious and sentimental' and 'drippy softcore preachery'... for them I can feel only pity, for as far as I am concerned, the message of Love is one for everyone, if we can but let it in. If the lyrics don't speak to these people, fine; but they do speak to some of us; so deeply that they bring tears to our eyes. So the fact that these critics are arrogant enough tell everyone they meet not to bother listening long enough to make their own decision/connection (or not) with the music, to me, is a sin. Just because they got nothing out of it, doesn't mean we are all alike...thank God! Yes, we are all different...but Love is Love.

Thank you EddieK and Live, for lifting me up.