The '70s Review

[chadgumbo]

Twenty-eight years ago, or thereabouts, I made a 25 mile trip from my parents' home to the Surf Ballroom in Clear Lake to see REO Speedwagon. It was an exciting night. The music was new, loud, and the musicians were tight and energetic. I wanted to follow them for the rest of their tour... but I had school on Monday
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Jump forward nearly thirty years to Thursday October 6, 2005. REO Speedwagon and Styx were playing at the Mayo Civic Center in Rochester, MN. My wife wanted to see them in the worst way. Neither of us had ever seen Styx and we'd each seen REO once (each of us at the Surf - but we didn't know each other back then even though it was likely the same show).
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We were both looking forward to seeing REO. We both like their music a great deal, but neither of us has ever been much of a Styx fan and I honestly didn't believe I'd enjoy the Styx portion of the show all that much. REO was the opener. Kevin Cronin is in excellent physical condition... still very energetic and his voice hasn't lost a thing over the last 30 years. Neal Doughty is still with the band, and he still wears a beret while on stage. The bass player, Bruce Hall, was with REO when I last saw them as well. Newcomers were/are Bryan Hitt on drums (formerly with Wang-Chung) I call him a newcomer, and yet he's been with REO for 15 years!, and Dave Amato on lead guitar he's been with REO for a year longer than Hitt. There's certainly nothing wrong with Amato's guitar skills (he'd been with Ted Nugent, and Richie Sambora before landing with REO), but until last night I'd not known that Gary Richrath was no longer with the band, and I'd hoped to see him.
During the show, Tommy Shaw sneaked out on stage with a birthday cake between songs. It was Cronin's birthday, and here's a photo of Tommy surprising Kevin with the cake, and Kevin with a red feather boa

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Styx was the headliner and James Young and Tommy Shaw were the most recognizable members of the band.
The most noticably absent person, of course, was Dennis DeYoung. But that worked fine for me. His influence on that band was mostly what kept me from liking them all that much. I always felt I was going into diabetic shock whenever one of his songs was aired on the radio The Styx portion of the concert was a true rock show. They did do "Lady" and I endured it, but thankfully did not even offer so much as a tease of "Lorelei". It was clearly Tommy and James's show.
Styx does do one helluva a great cover renditon of "I Am the Walrus". It blew me away, and Tommy blew me away with his cover of "Can't Find My Way Home". In the end, I was glad I had seen it.
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Still, with bands of this sort, and nothing new from the studio in quite some time, it becomes a greatest hits review. It's fun, but... something's missing.
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A Feat show is more like an event. You get a nice mixture of the '70s material AND you get to hear the new material too. They're always fresh and relvant. That's what's great about Little Feat. They haven't become their own tribute band like so many of the other bands of the '70s. To Styx's credit though, they stepped outside themselves last night with those cover songs, and I was impressed.

[Mike]

chadgumbo said:

That's what's great about Little Feat. They haven't become their own tribute band like so many of the other bands of the '70s.

And to make that happen has been no little feat.

Chad, did you take the picture?

[chadgumbo]

I wish I could take credit for that photo Mike But I can't. Cameras weren't allowed, and it was pretty strictly enforced. Of course, there were at least as many cell phones with cameras being raised in the air as there were Bic lighters

My wife and I were in the 12th row, center stage. When that picture was taken I was actually seeing a profile of Tommy's left side and I was looking at Kevin Cronin head on. I see the candles aren't lit in this photo, so Cronin had already blown them out. I found the photo on Styx's website this morning.

As far as my comment about some bands of the seventies becoming tribute bands to themselves... I've touched on this before. Two years ago when Chris and I went to see the Doobies and Grand Funk at the Minnesota State Fair, I left the show feeling much the same way. Contributing to that sense of a band being its own "tribute band" is that often so much of the band's original lineup is missing. When I saw Grand Funk, Don Brewer and Mel Schacher were there but Mark Farner was off touring with his own band. So the lack of Farner helped me to feel that I wasn't really seeing "the real deal". Certainly the lack of Gary Richrath in the REO lineup lended to that same sense. And, as I mentioned earlier, I was actually kind of glad DeYoung wasn't part of the Styx team last night.

Little Feat has had its share of lineup changes, but the difference is that with the Feat - when they make a lineup change - one of the first things they do is get themselves into the studio and get out some new material. In this way, when they're playing a show and giving you the new material from the stage, you are in fact seeing "the real deal." And the current lineup has been a Little Feat lineup longer than any other. So which is "the real" Little Feat. The great thing about that band is that ALL of their lineups represent the "real" Little Feat. I do love that band.

[chadgumbo]

One more thing. After work today I stopped off at Best Buy and picked up a copy of Styx's new album/CD Big Bang Theory (does that title remind you of anything?) Anyway, the entire album is a collection of cover songs - much like Aerosmith's album Honkin' On Bobo is a blues cover album done by Aerosmith. On the Styx album you'll find "I Am the Walrus" "Can't Find My Way Home" "I Can See for Miles and Miles" and other covers of the late '60s and early '70s. I've given it a listen and it's pretty impressive. It's worth the $12 to $15 you'll need to pay.