Abbey Zelko

azelko@ydr.com

Big news, Live fans!

The countdown is over, and the announcement you’ve been waiting for is finally here.

Live is reuniting with its former lead singer, Ed Kowalczyk, for a worldwide tour in 2017.

This tour will be the first time the York-based rock band’s original lineup – Kowalczyk (vocals, guitar), Chad Taylor (guitar, backing vocals), Patrick Dahlheimer (bass) and Chad Gracey (drums, percussion) – has performed together since 2009, when Kowalczyk and Live parted ways on unfriendly terms.

“Ed, Chad, Patrick and I are no different than your average family,” Taylor said in a news release. “We might divide ourselves or argue fiercely, but thankfully, time and the grand gesture of forgiveness helps to heal old wounds. We’ve worked hard to restore the tenants of faith and trust that bonded us in the beginning.”

“You could say we took the long road home, but it feels good to be back,” Kowalczyk added.

Live members file suit against former lead singer Ed Kowalczyk

Tour dates – including headlining shows and festival appearances – will be announced in the new year, according to a news release. The band’s management says it’s too soon to confirm whether this tour will include a York performance.

This reunion comes 25 years after the release of Live's debut album "Mental Jewelry." During its run, the multi-platinum band sold more than 22 million albums worldwide and earned two No. 1 albums “Throwing Copper” and “Secret Samadhi.” Live performed on several shows including “Saturday Night Live,” “The Jon Stewart Show” and “The Late Show with David Letterman.”

The band is currently writing and recording but doesn’t plan to rush the next project, Kowalczyk said in the release.

“We didn’t want the pressure of completing an entire album hanging over us before we got out and played some shows,” he said. “I think the idea at the moment is to just go with the flow, get onstage together and see where all of this new energy takes us creatively.”

This is the first time the band hasn’t felt pressure from a record company to put out new music, Taylor said, and it shows in the work they’ve already done.

“We’re not focused on an album, but rather seeing where we can take our creativity one track at a time,” Taylor said.

New music could be released as early as 2017, with a larger project expected for 2018, Kowalczyk said.

Despite their disagreements in the past, Taylor said coming back together after a seven-year split and making music has been "effortless."

"I'm much more appreciative of how profoundly lucky we were to grow up together," he said. "As teenage musicians, I don't think we had the perspective to recognize how unique and fortunate we were to come from a blue collar town like York, Pa."

According to a 2010 lawsuit filed by Dahlheimer, Gracey and Taylor, the three band members “elected to remove Kowalczyk from the band Live as a result of certain disagreements.” The lawsuit said Kowalczyk was misleading fans by branding himself “Ed Kowalczyk of Live” when he took to the road after the band split, according to a 2012 Daily Record article. Kowalczyk argued that the band had agreed to take a hiatus.

UFD's fiber-optic line travels under Hudson River

In 2012, Chris Shinn replaced Kowalczyk as Live's new lead singer, and together they released Live's eighth studio album, "The Turn," in October 2014. Shinn was not mentioned in the news release announcing the reunion tour.

Taylor, Dahlheimer and Gracey became entrepreneurs in the years during and since Live. They are involved in leading plans for United Fiber & Data, a York-based fiber optics company.

UFD is housed in York City at the Think Loud Development, in which Taylor, Gracey and Dahlheimer are investors.