General Music Chat

One of my buddies in Ark gave me two tickets to see Reo/Styx tonight. I havent seen either of these groups in years. Should be fun with my friend and his wife who are good friends from my motorcycle racing days. I think they took me to the hospital twice during that part of my life. Bo Dice is opening the show.

On another subject, I got the mixes for my acoustic music, but everytime I try to load them on here it kicks back satelite link breakdown. I guess thats a nice way of saying my new music sucks. But hell Im used to that. As soon as I figure it out I will get some posted.

Hope everyone has a Great Rocking Weekend. Im gettin the Turbo out of the garage to charge the batteries and probably get a ticket in the process and heading out with sweet thang for the weekend. Sat night going to sit in with some friends of mine playing in the area. Its kinda nice to have a few weeks off from gigging as much as I like gigging.

I jsut wish that Gary Richcraft was still with Reo, I just used to love thaat tone he had on songs like Back On The Road Again, but I dont imagine they will be playing that era of thier music, probably putting on the big hits. Styx should be good always liked Tommy Shaw, especially when he told them to go f**k themselves when they were doing all that Mr Roboto stuff. Hopefully they will do Mrs America and some of that rauncht guitar rock they did there for a while.

C-Ya

My friends all tell me how great Styx is live, but I just can't get past that guy's voice. I find it way irritating, for some odd reason.

REO should be good. I think they've been unfairly labelled "the kings of generic rock."

I'm finally gonna get to audition a cpl guitarists on Sunday. Man, I hope one of them is a good fit for TFRB! We NEED to get up & playing again. It's been nearly 7 yrs since we had any kind of regular reliable person in that slot, yet still we try...

I have a whole bunch to do around the house this weekend, too, to get it ready for winter.

i'm a lil bummed about T'giving, though. The wife insists on going to her aunt's in Richmond. This will be the 1st year since I moved out on my own that I haven't cooked the traditional Thanksgiving Day feast, & it kinda pisses me off. Eh...guess I'll just hafta do it on Sat or Sun...GRRrrr!

Have fun at your concert, JW.

Hope everyone else's weekend is great, too.

I won a pair of front row tickets to see them, but the station screwed me. I got the notification that I won, then they never told me how to get my tickets. i called and called and they kept saying call again later.

Hope it's a good show JW, both excellent bands. I missed REO at a Shreveport casino not long ago, wanted to see that one. Saw them in 1975 with Aerosmtih and Ted Nugent, great show. Ted opened, REO second and Aerosmith headlined. I always liked Gary Richrath too. (did I spell that right?)

Saw Styx in about 77 or so, also an excellent show, both Tommy Shaw and JW Williams are killer guitar players and Tommy has a voice that just won't wait. I thought he had to have left his tonsils splattered all over the studio walls when I heard the first Damn Yankees album...

Both bands should be good, or at least they were 30 years ago...these days, I don't know, but I do know Tommy Shaw was still a killer guitar player when he did the KLOL rock n roll auction jam session with most of Damn Yankees in about 1990, they got Brad Gillis (Night Ranger) to fill in for Ted Nugent, I thought he sucked, but everyone else did a great show.

Off topic, but I might be going to see a band from your area this weekend. The Memphis All Stars are playing at a casino in Vicksburg, I might just take a short road trip. Went to see Dr Zorr's Funkmonsters, also from Memphis, a few weeks ago. Very good band, even if it's not music I would normally listen to. I really like the way they put their show together. Ever see either one? Both play Vicksburg regularly, Dr Zorr plays in Monroe pretty often too and I missed them last weekend. Wasn't able to go. they played at a Monroe club.

Yea, aught to be a good night on the town John.
Best wishes.

Ol Billy may have been sitting beside me in 77 at the Styx show.
Seem to remember a grand piano raising up out of the floor as they played Renegade. Huummm been lots a hemp over the bridge since then hard to recall years and details.

Should be a good show. I roomed with a guy years ago who was in a classic rock band and he sang and sounded EXACTLY like the lead singer in Styx, it was uncanny.

George - The Summit in Houston, 77 or so, Dennis DeYoung started the show on a revolving platform about 30 feet above the stage, doing the intro arpeggio to "Borrowed Time". It lowered down to the stage and the rest of the band started just as it got to stage level and he yelled "Don't look now but here come the 80's". Those first 3 notes were just the beginning of a killer show.

Jog your befuddled memory a bit? I seem to remember just a few funny looking white cylindrical objects floating around that night, the smoke and aroma creating a rather pleasant atmosphere...

They are going to perform in Phenix City/Columbia, Ga. I'm gonna be there. Should see some really good work performed, ya think?

One of my buddies in Ark gave me two tickets to see Reo/Styx tonight. I havent seen either of these groups in years. Should be fun with my friend and his wife who are good friends from my motorcycle racing days. I think they took me to the hospital twice during that part of my life. Bo Dice is opening the show.

On another subject, I got the mixes for my acoustic music, but everytime I try to load them on here it kicks back satelite link breakdown. I guess thats a nice way of saying my new music sucks. But hell Im used to that. As soon as I figure it out I will get some posted.

Hope everyone has a Great Rocking Weekend. Im gettin the Turbo out of the garage to charge the batteries and probably get a ticket in the process and heading out with sweet thang for the weekend. Sat night going to sit in with some friends of mine playing in the area. Its kinda nice to have a few weeks off from gigging as much as I like gigging.

I jsut wish that Gary Richcraft was still with Reo, I just used to love thaat tone he had on songs like Back On The Road Again, but I dont imagine they will be playing that era of thier music, probably putting on the big hits. Styx should be good always liked Tommy Shaw, especially when he told them to go f**k themselves when they were doing all that Mr Roboto stuff. Hopefully they will do Mrs America and some of that rauncht guitar rock they did there for a while.

C-Ya

Billy, I seem to remember S-port @ Hearsh Memorial.
Total darkness, then the piano raised out of the stage floor.
But you know, it was the 70's. Hell it may not even have been Styx

Pete, The Summit is a Church now Lakewood, Imagine that. I saw a lot of great concerts there. Rumor has it there is still some great music going on in there.

The concert friday was great. Bo Dice opened and although I didnt know much of his music I think he did a great job of involving the crowd and got a great response.

Reo went next and it was basically one hit after the other. They did Golden Country, Back On The Road and Riding the Storm out, all old favs of mine. They were smiling and cutting up the whole time and looked like they were having a killer time. Kevin made the mistake of saying something about Jonesville and went to the side of the stage and someone told him Jonesboro, he made sure after that to apologize for his mess up and refered the Jonesboro after every song.

Styx was tha main act and they coame out with Miss America, which to me has one of the nastiest guitar lines ever recorded, and then into Too Much Time on My Hands, Once again hit after hit and none of the Roboto stuff. They even did a killer cover of the Beatles I am The Walrus, suprised me. At the end they had Reo and Bo come out and do a final number together. The show started around 7 and went til 11.

I thought it was great and sounded great. Not too loud, not too quiet. They had a great light show with some really cool video going in the back ground. I think tickets were $50 and I would estimate 5000 people, so they probably grossed around $200,000 for the show. They had all the normal merch from guitar pick earings to baseball shirts. Everything from $5 to $30. They seemed busy with merch the whole time.

If this show comes to your town and you like these bands check it out. The bands looked great, sounded great and all of them looked like they were having a blast. I go and see a lot of younger bands play in the large club small auditorium range and cant remember many younger bands that had the energy and professional attitude that these bans had. Plus they were smiling lik they were really glad to be there.

Hey, JW. I just uploaded a version we did for a demo of "Back On the Road Again". We had just thrown this band together and wanted a quick demo for getting some gigs, so I didn't do a lot of production on it. Left a few mistakes in and stuff. The bass player said REO started it with a bass solo when he saw them live, so we thought, "What the Hell" and did one too.

Cool,cool, cool!!

REO = really cool:
Miss America + Too Much Time = Gag cough choke .... laaaame:

So much for my opinions eh

Glad you enjoyed the show John.

George, You should listen to that opening riff to Miss America, the recorded version sounds like an LP thru a tube screamer into a cranked Marshall. Styx catches some flax for some of the stuff they did, courtesy of Dennis De Young, but they absolutely rocked the house.

Tommy Shaw and James Young did this trade off guitar solo thing that was awesome without all the tapping tricks that so many of todays guitarist fall into. It was tasteful and you could tell they had a hell of a time.

The new guitarist for Reo, well hes not new anymore, but I thought he sounded fantastic on the outro solos on Back On The Road Again, that tone is the lead tone Ive always aspired too, just those searing bent upper register notes. I just love that tone.

I didnt think I would have as much fun at the show as I did. But I had some good company which was great.

I went over where you could see behind the stage and they were changing guitars on every song. There were a coupld of huge double stacked road cases full of awesome looking guitars, I wish I could have taken one of those with me. There were a lot of LPs with Kahler Whammy Bars on them, kinda made me want one like that.

Anyway George it might not have been your taste in music but these guys all of them put on one hell of a show is all I can say.