You called it sst, the show was top notch. The venue is small, holds 3000 and it was sold out, bunch of grey hairs and bald heads and gig bellies (except for us).....When we entered we started a conversation with a nice couple, talking on the age of the concert goers and laughing about "old school". then he pulls out his phone for his tickets, and I pull out hard "old school tickets", got a laugh on that as well. Turns out the cat has a mid level job with the panthers (NFL), and as Mary and his wife stood in a line to get a t-shirt we go off to the alcohol kiosks... he went with a couple beers I wanted a Jack Daniels, Mary a Vodka Tonic....out of the blue the cat says let me get those for you, let the panthers pay for them....I said, no, but he insisted. He signed off on a $80 bill!!!!
It's surprising how people are, just met the cat and he does that for us, I must have that "smile" or something....Bought a T-shirt and ($50) oh, well, it's a football style, 3/4 sleeve red/black with a skull head and STYX underneath a lei-like wreath of roses/flowers surrounding the Skull.....
Show started out with a bang, 2nd song out was as old oldie from Styx II, maybe my fav of their songs, Lady. After that they went into a selection of stuff from the new album and quite a bit of Grand Illusion, Come Sail Away, Miss America......They had a stage with what reminded my of an early Yes album, the world with like a sailing ship on it as a screen that was set over a 2 level stage. The amps where set up as the prop for the 2nd level with stairs rising on both sides to that 2nd level. Bass player and Guitarist went up their a couple time as did Tommy a few times with a spot on them. Had some kinda smoke/fog blasts through out the show going off, looked like smoke but dissipated very quickly as they rose...had a bit of a fog machine set up as well along the floor toward the end of the show. The keyboard guy had a swiveling stand and was quite the showman with it and did several "leprechaun" type jigs to a few songs as well, very entertaining guy.
The played a good 2 hours with a 20 minute break. We sat in our chairs and watched the RAM score go from ahead 16-13, tied at 16 OT and boom we lose.....we figured it had to be we fumbled or threw an INT....found out it was an INT....good luck with Baker getting a starting gig someplace....we left the house at halftime on an up note with TuTu doing his thing, all was right with the world, RAMS winning and heading for a show....ended up bittersweet, great live show, @#$%& TV showing (that we missed out on, half of it ).
It was a cold drizzle going in and a cold drizzle going out, but that venue cozied it up real nice.
