Styx, Foreigner & Kansas

[WhiteStrat]

WhiteStrat's completely biased concert review of the month:

Yep, I'm a child of the 70's and 80's. My wife and I (and my daughter and her husband) took in the triple bill of Styx, Foreigner and Kansas 'bout a week ago.

As a kid, my favorite band of all time was Styx--so that's why my wife got the tix for us. Kansas was up there among my faves, and Foreigner was no where on the list (c'mon...Hot Blooded? Give me a break!).

Styx was the headliner, with the longest set, and certainly didn't disappoint. There's only 2 founding fathers in the band, but my favorite was always Tommy Shaw, and he's still there, so it was cool. They were tight and played like they were 20 and had something to prove.

Foreigner was second, with the second longest set. I expected the least out of them, because I never liked 'em a lot to begin with. Besides, it's only one founding father--Mick Jones, and a bunch of young ringers he's hired to sound like Foreigner did 30 years ago. Gotta tell ya--they surprised the hell out of me. Though watching Mick Jones was a bit like watching your grandfather wank on a Les Paul, he was very good, and very into what he was doing. And the rest of the band wasn't just a cover band. They were playing the tunes like they owned 'em. Foreigner was definitely the surprise of the night.

Kansas opened. Bottom of the ticket, shortest set. As a youngster, I really liked them. And as I've aged, they're one of the bands from my youth that I've come to love, often asking myself, "WTF--why wasn't I more into these guys back in the day?" They had 4 out of 5 founding fathers--not bad for old timers. Problem is, the missing old timer, Kerry Livgren, is the heart of the band as far as I'm concerned. All of their truly genius stuff is his. So I was guarded in my expectations of Kansas without Kerry.

I needn't have been. Seeing them was borderline spiritual. Every note was spot on, and again, they weren't phoning it in. They were playing like they just wrote this stuff yesterday and couldn't wait to share it with the world. And one of my all time favorite songs ever on the planet or in the solar system or the universe for that matter...Carry on my Wayward Son. (Sorry if that's trite.)

wow...I saw Kansas when I was about 16--I probably hadn't tasted enough of life to even know what a wayward son was, much less feel like one--so however well they played it back then--it was lost on me.

But not this time. It was one of the single best live music moments of my life. I really expected it to be like watching a karaoke cover of old songs, but it really blew me away.

As much as I enjoyed seeing Styx yet again, and being surprised by Foreigner, Kansas was the take-away memory maker. Like I said to my wife after they finished Wayward Son (their last tune)--"I could go home right now and have more than my money's worth."

 

[true-eurt]

Kansas rocks...always have. Not sure if I told you about my before-fame encounter with them at a tiny bar in Kansas called Sna-foo's and a couple of 'em came to my house and we shared a little herb..and after a long night of shotting tequila, it is still a little fuzzy as to which two came..I think it was the keyboardist and bass player..but I could be unintentially committing slander...

They told me about their upcoming Don Kirshner Rock Concert gig...thought that was cool..it was a time, when Kirshner could get you National attention.

And by the way...that last set they did in that tiny bar, performing their original tunes, they rocked down the place.


I like Styx a lot too.

Foreigner was okay..but not one of my favorites..but..*I wanna know what love is* gave me chills..and it's still a favorite of mine.

I would have loved to been in that concert with those three bands though...had to be an awesome music experience.

 

[ocnor]

Those are 3 of my favorite bands. I saw Kansas in 1989 with Steve Morse on lead guitar. That was a fantastic show.

 

[Richard King]

Many, many years ago (late '70's?), when I was in the pro audio business in Minneapolis, a customer, friend of mine was the front of house engineer for Kansas. At the time I was also on the advisory committee of a technical school located about 65 miles west of Minneapolis that had a class in sound reinforcement. I called my friend and asked if I could bring the class in to watch the flown PA get rigged in place. He said that would be ok and left word that a bus full would be arriving well before the show. We got the "kids" (late teens to late 20's) in and took our places in the empty stands at the Met Sports Center. My friend came over and gave a brief description of what the various sound guys were doing during the rigging process. When it was nearly done he said anyone who wants to could go back stage to the salad bar and dig in. About 5 of the students and I went for the grub. As we were sitting there stuffing our faces four grubby looking guys came in and filled their plates and sat down at the table in front of us. One of the students asked one of the grubby guys what they do for the band. The grubby guy answered "I'm the guitar player", another "I'm the keyboard player", and on around the table. The guys in Kansas sat there and talked with these students from a school in rural Minnesota for about 15 minutes, something they certainly didn't need to do. A great time was had by all.

 

[Chili]

I got to see styx and foreigner in the 70's. I enjoyed Foreigner more; their Double Vision tour. They had huge mirrors that came down behind the band and the audience could see themselves from the band's perspective. It was very cool.

I used to be into Styx until I saw them in concert. IDK, just something about it turned me off. I think I realized they completely sold out. Though, it was kind of funny to see Tommy Shaw do an acoustic guitar solo with a jumbo. He's pretty small and that guitar was almost as big as him!!

Always wanted to see Kansas, never did. Cool to hear most of the original members are still doing it.

Thanks for sharing!!

 

[dintymoore]

One time around 1980 I went to see Foreigner at an outside multi-band concert here in Hawaii. It was incredibly hot -the sun was extra brutal. I made it through Joan Jett who was actually pretty good and didn't like Charlie Daniels a whole lot... I'd come to see Lou Gramm!

Well, we waited and waited, hours and hours and they kept on making announcements that Foreigner had got stuck in Maui... the sun was unbelievable.

After maybe 3 hours waiting I ended up having to leave because I had a gig that night and I had to drive home quite aways... I was pissed!

So I get to my gig and take the elevator to the 35th floor and it stops on the 2nd or so and a bunch of long hairs with sneakers and shorts get on. I notice they have English accents. Hmmm.

Yes, the guys in Foreigner were a nice bunch of lads for the 30 seconds I got to spend with them.

Very strange experience.

 

[grimtraveller]

I never really had any time for Foreigner, but I won't criticize any band that had Ian McDonald in it !
Styx, hmmm. Back in '79 when I was marooned out in Nigeria (that's another story for another time !), I got into 'heavy' music through early Floyd and Purple. Then I came across a book that had a heavy metal A-Z and of the 30 bands, Styx were one of them. So as 1980 wore on, I picked up more and more heavy albums. Then I came across "Cornerstone" by Styx. What an initial disappointment !! It was like a car that only did 20 MPH !
But, with Jethro Tull's "Heavy horses", that LP turned out to be an important turning point for me. It was the start of an important process for me in which I learned to take a bands' music for what it is, not some pre-defined assumption of what I thought it should be. And I grew to love that album. Still do. I also got "Equinox" (has my favourite 'love line' in "Light up") and the tour de force, "The grand illusion" at the time. Love 'em too.

As for Kansas......sheesh, this is a band I could talk about for days turning into weeks turning into months. My Dad treated himself this Panasonic music centre around '76 and it was like state of the art of the time, a serious upgrade from the reel to reel he'd had since the early 60s. And he used to tape bits off the radio section, not necesarilly because he liked the songs, just to see what it could do. And I always remember "Carry on wayward son" as one of them, though it was years before I found out it was Kansas. They were included in that same heavy metal A-Z from "Rock on" annual. First LP of theirs I heard was "Point of Know Return". I still listen to them now and they were the band that turned me on to the violin in rock. I wrote to Kerry Livgren back in '87, not long after he formed AD, and I was pleasantly surprized when he wrote back. I'd never received a letter from America before.