Sure, Hersheypark Stadium is a big venue. But it's like Murph's Other Bar to the band Live. This group of York natives may have had a bunch of hit songs, toured the world, and performed on major TV talk and rock shows.

But bassist Patrick Dahlheimer believes playing Hershey "still has that hometown feel," like that York watering hole where the band used to jam in relative obscurity.

Speaking by phone from Kansas City, Mo., the day before the band's current U.S. tour with Counting Crows began, Dahlheimer said performing in Live's hometown region is especially convenient for guitarist Chad Taylor and himself. Both of them still live in the area.

"It's great _ I can just jump in the car and be at the concert."

Dahlheimer, Taylor and their two bandmates, lead singer Ed Kowalczyk and drummer Chad Gracey, should probably grab a nap before heading for the Saturday, Aug. 26, Hershey show. Since their last area concert stop in February, they've been four very busy guys.

The band was set to take a three-week break, a bit of down time between the end of its 10-month world tour and the U.S. summer concert schedule.

But, Dahlheimer said, a burst of creativity compelled the band to head for the recording studio and kept it working straight through the vacation.

During those three weeks, and, previously, during breaks in the world tour, "We, more or less, did a record ... which should be out before the end of the year," Dahlheimer said.

This nascent CD started as something much different from what it became. Live fans have been a-twitter for months over rumors of a live Live album in the works. There'd certainly be plenty of material to choose from.

But there were also myriad new musical ideas within the band's Promethean psyche. "We were starting to gather (live) tracks and mix a couple things, and then realized we weren't ready. We still had so many songs in us that we hadn't recorded yet. And Ed said, "I want to demo some things,' ". So the band got together to make a group project out of the lead singer's ideas.

"This process was really kind of cool, with everybody just joining in and building Ed's songs, and it just became more of a Live record," he said.

He added that the new CD will contain songs the band members wrote while on tour, plus some left over from the band's fall 1999 CD _ the musical journey through ethereal and secular layers of love and spirituality that is "The Distance to Here."

Because the music on the new album is in various stages of rough cuts, Dahlheimer said he cannot succinctly describe it yet. "It's kind of us getting back to basic rock 'n' roll, getting back to a couple of chords. This record, which we don't even know what we're calling it, will be a little more extreme. The harder things will be harder, the delicate becomes more delicate, the raucous more raucous."

He added the group seems to be turning in a new direction creatively. "I'm excited about it," Dahlheimer said. "I've been sitting at home working on things" that the band will be recording. "We're going to try working in a different way," he said. "We're looking at doing more individual things and different combinations of two or three of us."

Lyrically, the CD-in-progress is more "here, now, today (than "Distance'). People will be taken by the fact that it's maybe not as transparent as a lot of the other lyrics" _ that more of it is "off-the-cuff on Ed's part," Dahlheimer said.

Live has been working at this creative-process thing for 15 years. Dahlheimer and his bandmates have performed together since their teen years at York's William Penn High School _ where they were known as Public Affection. In addition to clubs in its old White Rose City stomping grounds, the group sharpened its musical chops in the Red Rose City's Chameleon Club.

CD successes on the Radioactive label include three previous albums that produced such hits as "Selling the Drama" and "Lightning Crashes." "The Distance to Here," a lyrically and melodically straightforward CD that has earned the band greater critical acclaim than its previous disc, "Secret Samadhi," has launched the singles "The Dolphin's Cry," "Run to the Water" and "They Stood Up for Love" _ the latter two songs co-written by Dahlheimer.

The band's world tour, which ended in early July, took Live to Canada, Australia, New Zealand and various European countries.

"We got to go to South Africa, which was amazing. In the first place, just being there, and second, that there were 40,000 people in Johannesburg who love to see Live ... way down there at the bottom of the world," Dahlheimer said, his voice sounding full of genuine awe.

As Live begins sharing the bill with Counting Crows on the current tour, which runs through late October, Dahlheimer said it's the solid songwriting at the core of both groups' musical canons that makes them a comfortable fit as co-headliners.

"When the idea first came up, I wasn't sure how I felt about it," he said. "I felt our fan bases were a bit ... polar. But we did a European run together, and I got a chance to check them out, and we hung out together." The two bands have "pushed each other artistically," he added.

Live recently came face to face with its local past, when music channel VH1 featured its members' high school photos on its "Before They Were Rock Stars" series.

"I thought it was fun ... and funny," Dahlheimer said. "They referred to me as a hands-on kind of guy" _ using photos to illustrate he was the kind of man who could help you fix your car engine. "I don't even know how to change the oil in my car! I just wanted to clear that up for everyone at home."

So, will we ever see a Live edition of that other VH1 "secrets-of-the-rock-celebs" show? Can a band whose members have been friends since middle school soldier on without some crisis causing the kind of crash-and-burn tale common to so many other groups before them?

"The first months of this year were a rough couple of months," Dahlheimer said. "There were some bad times, some crud. We joked that, OK, it's time for our "Behind the Music.' But it's over now, and we're still friends, and we've moved onward and upward.

"Live wouldn't be Live if we weren't four separate people, and it wouldn't be Live if we weren't friends."