And your ears shall hear…

Live “Operation Spirit”

What an incredible album!  Blasphemous that I found a near mint copy in the cut-outs’ for a $1, but at least it was rescued and brought to safety by the ‘Kid!  ! It’s scary to think how long ago I saw this video debut on 120 Minutes, or was it Alternative Nation at that time; you let me know.  Picture a bunch of young kids playing their instruments on a beach around a campfire, while their lead singer is thrashing about with the conviction of an angry grizzly.  Swinging from trees, dancing in front of fires with arms flailing like a preacher, desperate to deliver his message to the masses.  This is the genius of  Live‘s lead singer Ed Kowalczyk, and the message of the spiritual battle that was waging inside of him at the time.  You fight this battle yourself, or at least get a good picture of it,  when you listen to the rest of the  songs that make up “Mental Jewely.”  The sheer intensity of the band in the video makes it compelling on it’s own.  But it’s the tribal rhythm and lyrical content of the first single “Operation Spirit,”  that propels this video into haunting new heights!  While the camera eerily alternates between black and white  and color images, Kowalczyk is running around like the anti-christ trying to conjure even bigger demons, or conquer his.  This is the theme throughout “Mental Jewelry,” and this energy and angst is why the album is such a great listen, and a huge a success!  I remember being offended by the lyrics to “Operation Spirit,” but enraptured by that energy!  A young, angry twenty-something kid, venting about how the jesus he knows is not relevant, because “the pain is right now and right here!”  “Heard a lot of talk about this Jesus/A man of love and a man of strength/What a man was 2000 years ago/Means nothing at all tome today!?”  I battled everyone that told me there wasn’t a god, and now a band that I was compelled to like, Live, had a different message.  But, in the end, that’s what drew me to the songs, and kept me listening.   I was almost studying the lyrics, hoping to find an answer, to some of my same doubts.  I was experiencing the same contradictions in my life and had some of the same feelings, and this record struck a chord.  I could got through each song on this album and try to mention the highlights, but the whole thing is a highlight.  It’s one of those classic LP’s that you must have in your collection; and I just got a back up for a buck!  Boo-ya!

Live “Operation Spirit-Live”

(Take note of the CD Longbox!)