{"id":902,"date":"2017-05-27T14:24:00","date_gmt":"2017-05-27T14:24:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/?p=902"},"modified":"2026-06-27T14:25:49","modified_gmt":"2026-06-27T14:25:49","slug":"live-stereo-mcs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/?p=902","title":{"rendered":"Live, Stereo MC\u2019s"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

November 2001, Sunrise Musical Theater, <\/strong>Sunrise, Fla.<\/strong><\/p>\n

I lived in State College for a couple of years in the mid-90s, and while the decade was rife with bands that gained huge popularity on the heels of a certain album (Hootie and the Blowfish, Alanis Morissette and Counting Crows come to mind), no one was bigger in Pennsylvania than Live.<\/p>\n

Hailing from York (which they wrote a song about called \u201cShit Towne\u201d), Live\u2019s sophomore release Throwing Copper<\/em> was a massive record, reaching No. 1 on the strength of two No. 1 songs (\u201cSelling the Drama\u201d and \u201cLightning Crashes\u201d) and five top 15 singles overall. I moved to State College in \u201995, a year after the album\u2019s release, and Throwing Copper<\/em> was still everywhere, all the time. There was even a bar in State College the band did a surprise show at during my days in Happy Valley which I found out about afterwards \u2014 I liked Live but wasn\u2019t in love with the band.<\/p>\n

I saw the band a couple years before at a festival in Atlanta, and they were good. It was a hot day and four shirtless guys roamed the stage playing songs from their debut album Mental Jewelry<\/em>. I left impressed, thinking the band had a bright future.<\/p>\n

Fast forward a decade, and I\u2019m with my friend Jon (who I also worked with in State College) in Sunrise to see the band again. While Live didn\u2019t replicate the success of Throwing Copper<\/em> (and who can, Hootie and Alanis did not with their follow-ups), the band didn\u2019t do too bad. Secret Samadhi<\/em> (1997) and The Distance to Here<\/em> (1999) did well, as the former also reached No. 1 and included \u201cTurn My Head,\u201d my favorite song from the band. The band was set to release V<\/em>, a collection of songs the band was pushed to release under label influence, but with four other albums in the books, Live had enough material to pack a show with constant favorites.<\/p>\n

We arrived early to see Stereo MCs, whose main claim to fame is the song \u201cConnected,\u201d and while I didn\u2019t know much else past that, I became interested after the performance. Lively with killer grooves, Stereo MCs rocked the house with their infectious music. The British band\u2019s mix of electronic rock and rap was smart, and vocalist Rob Birch didn\u2019t fear the large stage. It was an odd choice of band to open for Live, but it did get the crowd going.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s what I think about Live: The guys in the band seem like a good bunch, writing solid music and not making a big fuss about it, but somewhere along the way all the fame and money went to the head of lead singer Ed Kowalczyk and he became a massive dick. I don\u2019t want to say he thought of himself as a kind of god, but he was acting like it. Kowalczyk is no longer with the band and lawsuits detail what happened, but he was in charge on this night, with the spotlight always on him.<\/p>\n

And he played it to the hilt, though the song selection was at times odd. The band opened with \u201cSimple Creed,\u201d which would become a moderate hit on V<\/em>, but few knew of it on this night. It followed with \u201cLike a Soldier,\u201d another new song, then added \u201cThe Distance,\u201d a non-starter from The Distance to Here<\/em>. It was a weird three songs to start the night, and it wasn\u2019t until \u201cAll Over You\u201d began that the crowd let out a collective roar.<\/p>\n

At their best, Live excels when it is loud and screaming. I get the sense Kowalczyk likes the slow-down songs because they become all about him, but when he\u2019s a piece of a song (like in \u201cI Alone\u201d and \u201cWhite, Discussion\u201d) instead of the main cog (\u201cOvercome\u201d), the band is unparalleled. These three songs were played on this night, and while \u201cOvercome\u201d developed a huge following in the days after 9-11, it felt on this night like a showcase for Kowalczyk to show how important he is. The band even played \u201cImagine,\u201d which is a song no one should ever cover.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhite, Discussion,\u201d however, ended the main set with a powerful well of instrumental madness. Guitarist Chad Taylor, bassist Patrick Dahlheimer and drummer Chad Gracey were all in \u2014 it\u2019s a song where they shine \u2014 while Kowalczyk\u2019s voice was a perfect part of the furious fray. The encore of \u201cRun to the Water\u201d and \u201cI Alone\u201d made the show instantly memorable \u2014 these are the band\u2019s strengths and they know it.<\/p>\n

Then Kowalczyk came on stage wrapped in a flag and sang \u201cOvercome,\u201d which felt self-important. It\u2019s a shame because the song is quite good.<\/p>\n

It was a strong show, and Kowalczyk had a lot to do with that. The stage had these various levels and he would move about, spending a good part of the time on a higher part than the rest of the band. But it was a propos, a singer who\u2019s part of a band he thinks he\u2019s above.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

November 2001, Sunrise Musical Theater, Sunrise, Fla. I lived in State College for a couple of years in the mid-90s, and while the decade was rife with bands that gained huge popularity on the heels of a certain album (Hootie and the Blowfish, Alanis Morissette and Counting Crows come to mind), no one was bigger […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":903,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[138,139],"class_list":["post-902","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-concerts","tag-live","tag-stereo-mcs"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/902","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=902"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/902\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":904,"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/902\/revisions\/904"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/903"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=902"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=902"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=902"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}