PhoenixDown

I think the biggest problem is that LPU used to give you things you genuinely could not get anywhere else. That made the membership feel like being part of something rather than just paying for better access to the store and ticket queue. I do understand why some of the old perks are harder now. Meet and greets with a band this big are probably much more complicated than they were twenty years ago, and nobody should expect a full album of unreleased material every year. But there is so much middle ground they are barely touching. Studio footage, demo breakdowns, rehearsal clips, longer interviews, archive commentary from the band, livestreams, even Mike opening an old session and explaining how a song came together would cost relatively little compared with what fans would get out of it. That is what makes the current setup disappointing. It is not really about wanting more free stuff. People are already paying specifically because they want a closer connection to the band, and most of the benefits seem designed around giving them another opportunity to spend money. The Discord situation is especially hard to defend. If you are charging recurring membership fees, the basic membership infrastructure should not take a year and a half to function properly. I would probably feel differently if there were a clear sense that LPU was being rebuilt into something substantial. Right now I can understand why somebody who remembers the older version would look at the current membership and ask what exactly they are paying for.

Those numbers are honestly pretty incredible, especially considering how much uncertainty there was around the band returning with a new lineup. $251 million and 2.2 million tickets is way beyond just a successful comeback. The fact that Europe alone generated over $100 million and they were doing nearly 100,000 people across two nights in places like Munich and São Paulo shows how much demand was still there. What stands out most to me is that this wasn’t just nostalgia either. They came back with new music, a different lineup and still managed to make this their biggest touring era by a huge margin. Pretty remarkable chapter for the band.

“What I’ve Done” is one of those songs that still works incredibly well live. The São Paulo crowd gives it a lot of extra energy, and I like hearing how the current lineup approaches the older material without trying to copy the original performances exactly. Definitely looking forward to hearing the rest of this live release.