Styx and Kansas
Let me first say Styx was absolutely amazing--more amazing than I had anticipated!!! Kansas was great also but I was never a big fan of theirs so really didn't know what to expect. We went with 4 other friends and had dinner downtown first and walked the 2 blocks to the concert venue.
The concert was at the Morris Performing Arts Center in downtown South Bend which is an absolutely beautiful OLD theater that has been recently remodeled. Always a great place to see a concert because there really isn't a bad seat in the place.
Show started exactly ON TIME-amazingly-with Kansas. Like I said above, never very familiar with the band other than the hits from the radio like Dust In The Wind, The Game, Point of No Return, but Larry had told me I would enjoy them. He had seen them in the 70's and said they were really great. They played all of these with plenty of others for about an hour. Good stuff but I was definitely waiting for Tommy and the boys!
After about a half hour intermission, here they came, and they were so worth all the anticipation. It was the first time Larry and I had seen them but the other 4 we were with had seen them several times, it's no wonder why. AMAZING!!!!! These guys are all in the 50's and still got it--in a BIG way! From the moment they stepped out on stage they were nonstop excitement. Tommy Shaw doesn't only still look gorgeousbut he is quite the show man and the keyboardist, Lawrence Gowan, is insane. He has this spinning keyboard that sets up on a round, lighted, spinning platform and he moves all the time, jumping off and dancing around the whole stage. His voice is also amazing and makes the old songs sound as good as they did before he joined the group. Tommy and James Young still sound fantastic!!! They played all the goodies, (see playlist below) and since it was pretty much a homecoming for Tommy, he really played on that and told several stories of when he was just starting out and playing at a local bowling alley (see my little side story below) listening to Styx on the Chicago radio station WLS in the early years. They were joined for a few songs by original bassist, Chuckie Pozanno, who is battling aids and had quit the group last year I believe. He looked pretty good and healthy tho.
They threw picks out into the audience by the dozens, Tommy and James would hand someone a pick and reach into their pocket pull out another one, without missing a beat. About 1/2 way thru the show,Tommy says we love to give out stuff and they started throwing out Styx frisbees and tote bags. Then again after the encore they were throwing out Styx beach balls, t shirts, pins, picks, drum sticks and more. And during the encore, Lawrence was running around with a polaroid camera taking pictures of all the band members and then throwing them out into the audience. I would of loved to have gotten one of those. But as usual, I came home empty handed. I guess I just have to buy my stuff!
Set list, as far as I can remember it I believe.
Blue Collar Man
The Grand Illusion
Loralei
One With Everything
Lady
Too Much Time On My Hands
Snowblind
I Am The Walrus
Boat On The River
Man In The Wilderness (Shaw acoustic)
Crystal Ball
Suite Madame Blue
Fooling Yourself
Miss America
Come Sail Away
encore:
Everything All The Time
Renegade
My little side story about Tommy in the "old days" when he was just getting started. Right across the stateline in Niles, Michigan was a bowling alley called Shula's, and they use to have live bands there on weekends. Word got out about a band that was playing there called MS Funk that were based out of Chicago that had a really great guitarist that didn't look to bad either. This is the band Tommy was with when Styx discovered him, and he used to drive back and forth from his home in Niles to Chicago to record. He was talking about that last night, and was talking about the lake effect snow that he remembers driving thru after he would cross Highway 65 coming from Chicago into Michigan. (See-that's how bad this snow is around here--he still remembered that from the early 70's.) He was originally from Alabama (from what I understand he used to play in a band and play at a bowling alley down there also--coincidence that is). Anyways, Shula's was known for not carding and it was pretty easy if you were underage to get into there. So on weekends, we would pack up a car and head north to Shula's to stalk Tommy Shaw and drive by his home etc, not knowing that a year or 2 later he would be in one of the most famous bands at the time.
I didn't take any pictures last night (I never do--I'm always to into the concert to do it!) but here are some recent ones I found on line just to show a little of what we saw last night. Again, Tommy is, I think, better now than he was in the 70's.
Lawrence Gowan and his spinning keyboard
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Originally Posted by EagleLady
