INTRODUCTION:

Bias Alert! Early in 1992, a good friend of mine brought a cassette tape to my house and told me I simply had to listen to it. As with most of the stuff I "simply had to listen to," I had never heard of the band or the album, but he was my friend, and so I listened. I was immediately struck by how honest and thoughtful the music was and before the end of the day, I had copied the tape for myself. This was a band that did not pretend to have all the answers, but it was asking the same questions I was about this wonderful existence, and it was doing so with clever lyrics and a uniquely fluid musical style unlike the grunge explosion that was starting to dominate the airwaves. I was hooked and have been ever since. The band, of course, is Live, and the album was Mental Jewelry. Therefore, the context of this review is from the viewpoint of a longtime fan and one who on any given day would be prone to consider Live his favorite band. You have been warned.

Ken Wilber (a popular author and philosopher) writes the following: "The one criticism -- and virtually the only criticism -- I have consistently heard leveled of Live is that they 'lack irony.' To criticize a group for lacking irony is supposed to be a sophisticated way of saying they don't stand back from themselves with a detached smirk; but in plain language, it means they won't lie to you. In other words, somebody lacking irony actually has something positive or truthful they would like to share with you, and they won't go two-faced on your ass to do so. And Live does indeed have something positive to say to us. They sing about the truly important fundamentals of existence. About life and love and relationships and death and meditation and, yes, even spirituality, but a spirituality that is open to everybody, not as religion, but as your own deepest or highest Self. And not in a way that says their view of spirituality is the only correct view, but a way that invites you to discover your own deepest truths for yourself." Yeah ... that sounds about right.

CONTENT:

"Best of" albums are not made for the diehard fans, or at least if they are, they're almost certainly doomed to fail. Fans typically already own all the albums, and they're not overly thrilled with a collection of tunes that is destined to leave off at least one of their favorite songs, especially with a band that has so much great material from which to choose and whose albums are complete and thematic in their individuality. "Best of" collections have a different audience: the casual listener who knows some of the songs from the radio and maybe owns one of the more popular albums but who lost track of the band when they weren't topping the charts and wants to get all the "hits" in one place. In rare cases, a "best of" collection satisfies both audiences. With the inclusion of the music video DVD and the 30-minute interview with Ed Kowalczyk, Awake - The Best of Live may in fact be such a release.

Included in this set are two discs. The audio CD contains 19 tracks from the 6 major albums, including the previously unreleased "We Deal in Dreams", the "Run Away" duet with Shelby Lynne and a cover of Johnny Cash's "I Walk the Line". On the DVD are 22 of the band's music videos with live and alternate versions as well as a 30-minute interview with Live's lead singer and primary lyricist Ed Kowalczyk. The details are as follows:

AUDIO CD:

Using almost 78 minutes of the disc, it's clear that this attempt is not a marketing gimmick. Every effort seems to have been made to maximize the amount of music that would fit on the disc, so it's difficult to complain about personal favorites that did not make the cut. 5 tracks are from the band's most popular album to date with only 2 each from their less popular releases, and there is a good cross-section of the band's different styles. While chronologically organized by album, the tracks within each section have in some cases been shuffled a bit from their original order, and it keeps the disc a little fresher. For example, on Mental Jewelry, the first three tracks are "Pain Lies on the Riverside", "Operation Spirit", and "The Beauty of Gray" respectively. Reorganizing them for the "best of" disc keeps it from sounding like you're simply listening to the contributing album.

When I first looked at the track listing on the Internet a few months ago, I was disappointed that some of my favorites didn't make the cut, specifically "They Stood Up for Love", "Top", "Iris", and "Simple Creed". However, now that I have the release in my hands, I see that two of the omitted tracks have been included in the video section, and the other two are from Throwing Copper, an album that just simply has way too many great songs. Overall, it's a good mix of softer introspective pieces and bombastic anthemic rock, and the more I think about it the more I feel the chronological ordering is the best way to present this album. Live's spiritual evolution is such a clear progression that it seems fitting to present the tracks in this manner.

Heavily inspired by Jiddu Krishnamurti and his book You are the World, the tracks from Mental Jewelry are representative of the spiritual questioning the band was going through in their teen years. Raised in a Christian household, Ed had begun to resent much of it. He was freethinking enough to realize that much of what was prevalent didn't make sense, but he was not so arrogant as to assume that he knew all the answers. The included tracks are honest and thoughtful and represent much of the soul of the band's creation. Building on that was Throwing Copper, a conscious attempt to create a complete kick-ass album in the way U2 had done with The Joshua Tree and R.E.M. with Life's Rich Pageant. They succeeded in this task, so having 5 tracks from the album is still lacking, but the choices are a great sampling of the finished product.

Their second album was such a monster success that Secret Samadhi was a "what now" album. The lives of the band members had been altered so heavily with fame and fortune that they needed to take a step back and look at what they wanted to do from here. "Lakini's Juice" was intended to be a complete departure from anything we had heard before and a statement to the industry that they were not going to be one of those bands that simply repeated the same style that made them famous over and over. It's a fascinating album that even the band admits to not really being sure what it's about, and the two tracks selected are a perfect representation of its energy and style. Ed has said many times before that part of the creative growth process is to destroy and rebuild, and Samadhi was an attempt to burn it all down in hopes that a phoenix would rise from the ashes.

That phoenix was The Distance to Here which, while not the huge success of Throwing Copper, is the favorite of many fans. It represents rebirth and clarity and is both beautiful and uplifting. It's a shame only 3 songs could be included from this work, because there is so much great music here, but the selections are a good mix of what makes this album so strong. V was another attempt at departure for the band, and it contains a raw energy unlike any of their other albums. Unfortunately, none of the songs that represent that style made it onto the CD (although "Simple Creed" and "Like a Soldier" make the DVD). "Overcome", which was released to the Internet for free after 9/11 and ended up becoming somewhat of an anthem to those involved, is an amazing piece of music, and it has to be on this disc. "Nobody Knows", however, is another slower song, and I would have preferred to have something more energetic at this point. The final two tracks are from Birds of Pray, an album that in Ed's words is "less of a search and more of a find." The single "Heaven" was written when he saw his daughter's ultrasound and in some ways is representative of the current state of his spiritual evolution. At the age of 33, it seems a certainty there's more to come.

Also included among the familiar hits are three new releases. "We Deal in Dreams" is one of many cuts that didn't make the final Throwing Copper album and has languished among the bootleggers for years. This new recording of an old track is an interesting throwback to the band's sound of the early 90's. Not only is it chronologically accurate, but in the flow of the album, it fits perfectly where it has been placed. "Run Away" was originally released on Birds of Pray, and while it's one of Ed's favorite songs, I personally never liked it. However, this is a song that really lends itself to a duet, and after the album's original release, Ed got together with Shelby Lynne and recorded another version. Although a subtle change, it makes a great impact, and I find this version to be far superior, so it's wonderful that they included it on this release. The final track on the album is a cover of the Man in Black's very first number one hit, "I Walk the Line". While Ed is certainly no Johnny Cash, this song is still fresh 50 years later, and Live's version is a reverent and creative cover.

MUSIC VIDEO DVD:

Complementing the audio CD is a DVD packed with music videos from the band's entire career. Looking at the first four videos, it's amazing to recall just how young these guys were when they were hitting it big and how much they have evolved over the years. For "Operation Spirit" and "Pain Lies on the Riverside", additional live performances are included, showing some of their stage presence in the early days as well as a nice lyrical twist on "Operation Spirit".

From the Throwing Copper block are two fantastic videos, I Alone and Lightning Crashes. The first is just an exercise in insanity. It's stylistically beautiful and at the same time hilariously crazy. I absolutely love watching it. It was likely created that way to offset the dramatic nature of the Lightning Crashes video, which symbolizes the cycle of death and rebirth.

The videos from Secret Samadhi showcase a really high level of creativity from the group. "Lakini's Juice" and "Freaks" are haunting pieces of work, and the two different versions of "Turn My Head" are fascinating to compare against one another. In my opinion, these efforts represent the peak of the band's music videos. Much like the album, the videos for The Distance to Here are a departure from the previous work and display the uplifting energy of the selected songs.

After the way people reacted to the release of "Overcome", CameraPlanet.com put together a tribute to the American servicemen and women that eventually became the video release for the song. Like the song, it's powerful in its simplicity, and even now, it's emotional to watch it. Also from V are the videos for two songs that did not make the CD, "Simple Creed" and "Like a Soldier". "Simple Creed" is such a basic message about backing off all the grandstanding and just loving one another, and the video does a great job capturing that message in an entertaining way.

Overall, it's a great collection of the band's work in many different forms. Including live versions with the conceptual ones and mixing in the two different concepts of the "Turn My Head" and "Heaven" videos adds depth to the package making it more than just a collection of music videos. I did not know what to expect from this DVD, but I was very happy with the result.

PRESENTATION:

The videos are presented in 4:3, and both the CD and DVD are in stereo. The CD tracks are essentially the same ones from the original releases with no additional re-mastering. They all sound great, and there's nothing new here. Some of the older videos show their age, but that's likely due to the low budget on which they were filmed. The rest of them are crisp and clean, and it's a well-produced disc.

The menu structure on the DVD is very simple and easy to navigate. You can either play all the videos at once or select them from short animated clips in the sub-menus. My only complaint with this structure is that the background music for the individual video menus is the same, and it restarts when you select the next screen. If you're searching for a video on the third screen, hearing the first few bars of the same song gets a tad annoying. This is relatively trivial.

Also included is a 14-panel foldout insert with pictures and quotes chronicling the band's evolution.

WHISTLES & BELLS:

In addition to the songs and videos is a fascinating 30-minute "interview" with Ed Kowalczyk. I use quotation marks because there's only one question that can be heard being asked. The rest of the time is Ed talking by himself about everything relating to the band, from their formation when they were 13 years old to how they live their lives today. He gives great amounts of detail on the genesis of each of the 6 albums and the meaning and purpose behind many of the videos. While much of the information will be familiar to diehard fans, it's definitely not fluff. There is quite a bit of insight here, and it is well worth watching. There is a button marked +LIVE+ on the main menu, and by selecting it, you can get a +LIVE+ icon to pop up during the videos that will take you to specific parts of the commentary discussing that particular video. It's a nice feature, although watching the interview in its entirety seems to make more sense to me.

CONCLUDING THOUGHTS:

Anthemic, introspective, spiritual, idealistic, and powerful, Live has been challenging themselves and their audience for nearly 15 years. While many "best of" releases are doomed to disappoint, Awake has something for everyone and should please those casually familiar with the band as well as longtime fans. Between the CD and the DVD, nearly all of their great songs get a chance to shine, and the new releases are a nice treat for the fans who already own all the original albums and may be looking for something more. It's difficult to encapsulate an entire career into one small package, but this release does as good a job as I think could possibly be done, and I Highly Recommend it.