+Live+
Oct. 11, 2025
MGM Northfield Park – Northfield, Ohio
By Rob McCune
The alt-rock band +Live+ that surged to prominence in the mid-1990s by now is on at least its third life and fully came alive during an intimate performance at Center Stage, the concert hall of MGM Northfield Park in northeast Ohio.


Back at the helm, and wielding a microphone like a weapon, is founder and frontman Ed Kowalczyk, who rejoined the band in 2016 after going solo for a period starting in 2009. Truly the heart and soul of this band, Kowalczyk is now the last of the original +Live+ crew, touring with incredible musicians such as lead guitarist Zak Loy (of the band Alpha Rev), bassist Pat Seals (of Flyleaf) and drummer Johnny Radelat, who also supplies the beat for rock-soul-blues icon Gary Clark Jr.
Ed and the band brought a revival to Northfield, Ohio, just south of Cleveland, for a crowd that was eager to be enlightened and energized.
Dubbed “An Evening With Live,” the show featured a tight, roughly 80-minute set—with no opening act—that rewarded the long-time fans with hits off the band’s breakout third album Throwing Copper (1994), including “I Alone,” “All Over You,” and a stripped-down “Lighting Crashes” that started with one guitar and mic, adding drums by the second chorus.
The eminently familiar guitar riffs of “Lakini’s Juice,” off the band’s fourth album “Secret Samadhi,” ratcheted up the fanfare, raising arms and banging heads as if tethered to puppet strings mastered by Kowalczyk himself.
For much of the first three songs, Kowalczyk in a leopard-print shirt and beachgoer sunglasses seemed uncharacteristically subdued, clinging to the microphone at center stage. Power ballads like “The Dolphin’s Cry,” off the fifth studio album The Distance To Here, brought out and unleashed the stage-roaming, rhythmic beast within.
With “The Distance,” also a fifth-album fave, Ed found “his lucky penny, put it in his pocket” and shook it all around.
The set didn’t feature only the radio hits, however. The band worked in more obscure B-sides, like “Shit Towne,” off Throwing Copper, on which Ed gained cred from a typically Pa.-poohing Ohio crowd by confiding that he wrote that song about his hometown of York, Pa.
A taste of the new +Live+ and what might be in store in this age of revival came with performances of “Lady Bhang: She Got Me Rollin’,” the single released last year (and the first in six years), and a new, not-yet-recorded song called “Leave the Radio On,” a sweet groove which insists quite convincingly to be on the radio very soon.
A band without new music is effectively on life support, kept alive by the murmurs of the past. But, with new energy and now a new song, +Live+ has given fans a massive jolt to the heart, and we’re more than ready to live it up again.

Rob McCune is Every_Thing_After_Photo on Instagram, where he shares his concert photography and reviews, as well as clips from his “Every.Thing.After” podcast, with interviews with musicians and bands.

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