+LĪVE+, Collective Soul, Our Lady Peace at Starlight Theatre, Kansas City MO (2025-08-12)

It took two tries, but Summer Unity finally came together in Kansas City—

On a hot mid-July weeknight, +LĪVE+, Collective Soul, and Our Lady Peace (w/Greylin James Rue) were scheduled for a night of favorite songs at Starlight Theatre on their collective Summer Unity Tour, though gray skies were looming on the horizon. The night started as scheduled and we were there to take in all in, but by the time Our Lady Peace’s set ended, those gray skies were almost directly overhead.

The setup continued for Collective Soul, but the temperature dropped twenty degrees in mere minutes, skies darkened, and then the rain began, forcing the crew to cover all equipment and close the stage doors. After an hour or so delay, the weather was still holding firm, so the rest of the show was called off.

This was ironically on +LĪVE+ singer Ed Kowalczyk’s birthday, so Mother Nature ended up giving him a night off, but all were grateful that they were able to reschedule the show for a few weeks later.

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Canadian rock stalwarts Our Lady Peace (vocalist Raine Maida with Duncan Coutts on bass, Steve Mazur on guitars, and Jason Pierce on drums) again brought the volume early with a seven-song opener, celebrating the band’s thirty-year anniversary, with Maida cheekily noting as they started, how familiar a lot of the crowd looked.

We won’t say too much about their entertaining set, as we covered a lot of the basics in last month’s show review but to their credit, they intentionally mixed the set up from previous, to make it feel fresh and not simply a retread of last time.

Maida remarked how strange it was to not be including hit single, “Superman’s Dead” in their performance (and first breakthrough hit “Starseed” was not played either) and kept his banter to more of a minimum, resulting in getting to hear deeper cuts like “Something in the Water”, “4 AM” and “Innocent”, to feel like more of a complete OLP performance, if you combined the two.

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Georgia rockers Collective Soul were next on the bill (but played just a couple minutes longer- approx 80min.- than the headliner), strutting out to their intro music of BRMC’s “Let the Day Begin” (a cover of that band’s bassist’s late father’s original recording by his band, The Call) and briefly met in a circle around the drum kit before ripping into the opening chords of new song, “Mother’s Love.”

Singer Ed Roland smiled and waved to the crowd, fully decked out in a bright-red sequined suit with an emblazoned ‘Jesus Saves’ logo and cross on the jacket back, and wearing a sculpted cowboy hat. The band has been at it for over thirty years and likely has more radio hits than you might first think, as a familiar guitar riff would strike up an ‘a-ha moment’ with many in the crowd.

The large video backdrop was used to their advantage, with many of their original album covers coming to life in clever animations, newer songs like “Keep It on Track” featured sped up train, transit, and cityscape footage, and the original music video played as the band struck up 1995’s “The World I Know.”

The crowd loved waiting for their part on 1994 breakthrough hit, “Shine” to sing a collective “Yeah!”, were happy to yell out their differing opinions of the metro’s best barbecue when asked, and Roland noted that the band’s new album (last year’s “Here to Eternity”) was recorded in Elvis Presley’s former Palm Springs estate, saying he even got to sleep in the King’s bed while they stayed there to record.

Roland even stopped the show to take band selfie with a super fan and the sing-a longs continued as the set progressed- on 1995’s “December,” the peppy “Gel,” and wrapped with 1998’s “Run,” as the screen animated the bees flying around the woman’s mouth from its Dosage album cover. The five-piece ended as they began their set- in a small circle facing themselves briefly, before breaking to wave good night, and then disappearing.

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York PA band +LĪVE+ would close the evening with a seventy-five minute set, opening (like they would thirty years ago) with now modern classics, “Pain Lies on the Riverside,” and hit singles, “Selling the Drama” and “All Over You” (we’re old enough to remember their show across town at Sandstone, some three decades ago, that opened similarly).

We’d admittedly lost a little track of the band, but knew vocalist Kowalczyk had re-joined in 2016 after embarking on a solo career (we saw him live singing album “Throwing Copper” ten years ago in Minneapolis) and thought all was fine, but little we did know the internal squabbling had hit a boiling point again, leaving Kowalczyk as the lone original member by the end of 2022.

Luckily, he’s recruited a solid backup band, including drummer Johnny Radelat and guitarist Zak Loy, formerly of Austin, TX band Alpha Rev (who we caught live with Ben Rector way back in 2013) and who has been at Kowalczyk’s side for over a decade. All the bands apologized for the previous bad weather and appreciated the crowd returned, and Kowalczyk echoed that statement, even louder than the other acts.

It wasn’t all 90’s material though, as the band worked in last year’s single, “Lady Bhang (She Got Me Rollin’)” and the yet-to-be-released, “Leave the Radio On” into the set, played as a +LĪVE+ branded record spun on the video backdrop behind them. But, predictably it was the older material that received the greatest response back, including “Shit Towne” with its sepia woods video images, and 1999 single, “The Dolphin’s Cry,” complete with swelling ocean footage.

After a strong “Lakini’s Juice” ended the main set, the band returned (to taped walk-on music of a similar strange electro synth instrumental that served as their intro [??]) for a three-song collection of familiar hit singles. “Turn My Head” began the encore on a slower note, with 1994’s “I Alone” picking up the tempo, and the evening would end with a quiet roar, on arguably the band’s best-known and most successful song, “Lightning Crashes.”

When your biggest song is a ballad, it makes some sense to end with that, especially with a song that amazingly was never released as a single in the US, but gained enough radio airplay anyway, to top the Billboard Album Rock and Modern Rock Charts for ten and nine weeks respectively.

“You officially are the Lightning Soldiers of Love!” Kowalczyk declared to the crowd, thanking them for coming back on the re-scheduled date (a clear, cooler and generally perfect summer evening) and it took a second try, but +LĪVE+, Collective Soul, and Our Lady Peace finally found Summer Unity in Kansas City.

(click on any image to enlarge and to see in full)

LIVE at Starlight Theatre, Kansas City MO (2025-08-12)

LIVE at Starlight Theatre, Kansas City MO (2025-08-12)

LIVE at Starlight Theatre, Kansas City MO (2025-08-12)

Collective Soul at Starlight Theatre, Kansas City MO (2025-08-12)

Collective Soul at Starlight Theatre, Kansas City MO (2025-08-12)

Our Lady Peace at Starlight Theatre, Kansas City MO (2025-08-12)