It was the third longest gap between an album first charting and reaching number one, behind Fleetwood Mac's eponymous album in 1976 (58 weeks) and Paula Abdul's Forever Your Girl in 1989 (64 weeks). The band appeared on NBC's Saturday Night Live, where they played "I Alone" and "Selling the Drama", and they performed for the first time in the UK, on The Word. "Lightning Crashes" also stayed at the top of the Billboard Hot Mainstream Rock Tracks chart for ten consecutive weeks. The single "Operation Spirit (The Tyranny of Tradition)" reached number nine on the Modern Rock chart and was followed by their debut album, 1991's Mental Jewelry, which Harrison again produced. Gracey picked the name based on a comment by his girlfriend at the time. When touring, Live has used additional musicians, including Kowalczyk's younger brother Adam, British keyboardist Michael "Railo" Railton, rhythm guitarist Christopher Thorn of Blind Melon, and guitarist Zak Loy of Alpha Rev.
On June 21, 2022, Kowalczyk announced that Chad Taylor had been fired from the band the kai cenat casino game day before. The record's first single, "The Way Around Is Through", was uploaded to YouTube on September 10, 2014, and officially released on September 16. They performed with new touring members, including Gracious Few bandmate Sean Hennesy on rhythm guitar and Alexander Lefever on keyboards. On January 24, 2012, Taylor, Dahlheimer, and Gracey announced that they were leading members in a project to renovate a four-story building at 210 York Street in York. A previously unreleased Live song, "Hold Me Up", features in the 2008 Kevin Smith film Zack and Miri Make a Porno.
The success of these singles eventually gained Throwing Copper the number one position on the Billboard 200 album chart on May 6, 1995, its 52nd week on the chart. In May 2003, the band released the Jim Wirt-produced Birds of Pray, which reached number 28 on the US album chart, boosted by the unexpected success of the single "Heaven", Live's first U.S. The album contained four Modern Rock hit singles, but failed to match its predecessor's success, with sales reaching two million. In February 2026, Taylor and Gracey issued a cease and desist letter to Kowalczyk, asserting that his rights to use the band's name had been revoked by Action Front Unlimited, Inc. and demanding he stop using it for touring and other commercial activities. In September 2023, Live announced a co-headlining tour of Australia with Incubus for April 2024, marking the first time the two bands have toured together. In September 2022, Kowalczyk announced that he would be touring as Live without Dahlheimer or Gracey.
Their biggest success came in 1994 with their third album, Throwing Copper, which sold eight million copies in the U.S.