Styx In Theatres Now! (Well, last December really)

As the great Tommy Shaw would say, “Life is Good” and there is no better proof of that than when you are able to sneak out of work for a couple days and catch your favorite band for a few home town shows. Yes, I know I was to say the least, disappointed, when I went to Chicago to see Styx in September but the boys were back and they redeemed themselves big time. Let me start by explaining that there are these 2 beautiful theatres on the outskirts of town. The Star Plaza Theatre which is right below Chicago in Merrillville, IN and the Genesee Theatre which is right above in Waukegan, IL. Its become customary for the band to hit both theatres in a single weekend and its like a convention for the Stygian Band-Aides to meet up and share a few laughs, a few songs and a few other things I don’t need to mention here. I remember the first time I saw Styx at the Star Plaza. Was my first official road trip to see them. I met up with my friend Layla in Indianapolis and we drove up together, never before meeting face to face . It was still early in the day of Golden Circle tickets for fan club members and we were floored with our second-row, right center aisle seats. Yes, Virginia, that would put us just inside Tommy’s spot. We snuck around the theatre and managed to listen in on the sound check as we peeked thru the crack in the doors. It was where I got my first Tommy slide and the tour manager, Keith Mark, stopped by my seat to chat me up after noticing my t-shirt but that was a long time ago and I’m here to tell you about the December 29 & 30th shows.Yes, I flew again. Its hard not to when gas is so expensive. Chicago is a long drive and there was really no telling what type of weather to expect this time of year. I was smart enough to catch a slightly later flight out of Columbus this time so I wasn’t a walking zombie. I arrived in Chicago early Friday morning and grabbed a rental car to drive about 45 minutes south to the Star Plaza. This theatre is actually attached to a Radisson Hotel which makes it my all time favorite venue. Not only do I frequently get free rooms at the Radisson but they have great rooms with balconies overlooking an atrium that plays hosts to some local bands on the weekends. The connecting hallway also means you don’t have to find a place to stash a big bulky coat and you can enjoy a couple beers and not have to designate a driver. I arrived at the hotel first and took a trip around the theatre to check out the buses and the big red truck. After checking in, I tried to lay down and take a nap but it wasn’t happening so I flipped thru the channels on the TV and passed the time watching Cash Cab on the Discovery Channel. This network really has some fun shows that people never hear about. I thought my friends, Renee, Tall Jan and her sister-in-law would never get there. How dare they act like grown ups and go to work that day! I’m sure I drove Renee crazy calling her cell phone over and over again to see how much longer they were going to be but eventually she told me they were in the parking lot and on their way up. They had brought a cooler filled with beers and we all grabbed one as we changed clothes and got ready for our big night. Next on the agenda was dinner and we had made arrangements to meet Kelly and her husband Mark in the hotel bar for a quick burger and yet another beer. I will tell you now that I have no idea how I ever managed to remember I was at this show because I had at least 2 beers in the room, 2 at dinner, 2 at the show and 2 after the show but the 2 at the show are shaky, I know I drank one of Renee’s and then gave Mark money to buy her another and then I gave him more money later to buy me one which I think I poured half of into Renee’s cup but she says I drank the one Mark bought to replace the first one too. I don’t think I could of stood up was this true but we won’t tell her that.Dinner seemed to take much longer than we anticipated but we managed to get to the theatre in plenty of time to find some friends in the vip lounge and out by the merchandise table before making our way down to our seats. Oh, did I mention how good our seats were? As soon as they announced this show, Renee and I were emailing each other back and forth on our ticket strategy. Both of us, plus Tall Jan would each buy the best set of 2 tickets possible and we would keep 2 and sell the least favorable which I tell you was still in the 2nd row ;) The Star Plaza is a small place and the seats are right up to the stage, no room for rows of folding chairs. The stage sticks out in the center which allows the rows to wrap in around it. So what this means is if you are the aisle seat of the right section, you were actually up against the stage for the first five or six rows. It just so happened that Renee’s tickets were the aisle seats in the second row so that’s the set we claimed. Tall Jan being more of a Ricky Phillips fan, took a similar set on the other side of the stage and we sold the 2nd row, left-center section tickets. Kelly and Mark had real front row tickets a few feet away from us. On my way down to my seat, I noticed a few people I had met in the hotel earlier and got to say Hey! to Joey who was on my friend’s list at myspace. I wish I had more time to actually stop and talk to him but it looked as if he was in just as much a hurry to get to his seat as we were ours and there was feeling in the air that the moment we were waiting on was near. The show started off with the usual mystery track we all love so much and I am happy to tell you that I found a video on youtube of the beginning of the concert and was able to shark the audio from it. I’m working on the lyrics but its very tough with the crowd noise and my daughter and I cant agree on them just yet. I’ll post them as soon as I get something more concrete. The boys were on fire. Right away we noticed Ricky had a new haircut. Don’t fret girls, its still long, just smooth and silky now, awesome. JY introduced his mother who was in the balcony again this year. Tommy managed not to get too emotional this year and flub up a song so bad he had to restart, which was classic last year and I would not have had it any other way. All the usual songs, both Just Be and Everything All the Time plus 18 songs in the medley. After a couple songs, Mark was ready to let the girls enjoy the view and get himself a beer so I quickly volunteered to save his spot for him. Me and Kelly had a ball, taking pictures and joking with the boys. Mark came back and stayed with Renee. They was only 2 people between us and them so we could all still talk back and forth amongst ourselves. I offered him his original spot back several times but he insisted he was fine where he was. I took a lot of pictures but I came home with this really great one of Tommy’s battery pack. I’ve always been interested in learning more about these little things and now I have an up-close and personal picture to study. Of course, you cant see much when I shrink it down here but I'd be glad to forward anyone interested the 2592x1952 pixel original. Ask for photo 2273, it makes an excellent wallpaper for anyone interested in sound engineering. ;)I had a few of my usual signs and a couple of new ones I had made up because frankly, I felt Tommy was getting bored with the old ones. The most important one, and probably my boldest one read “Need 1 Ticket 4 Tomorrow” I didn’t figure it would help but at the very least, the boys would at least know I was trying to get to the Waukegan show. I didn’t hold it up until the end and JY caught a glimpse of it. His reaction was priceless, he held his hands up and said “Don’t know what to tell you” then flashed that famous JY smile. Another sign we made up on the fly when we say Ricky’s hair cut got a comment on stage. During Tommy’s speech about Ricky’s special guitar and his past resume, we held up a sign that read “Love the New Haircut” since Ricky it was one of the rare times Ricky was on our side and when it was time for Ricky to acknowledge what Tommy was saying about him, he pointed to us and said “They like the new haircut” Tommy laughed cause he knew the crazy sign girls had gotten to him and said “Well, it is a nice haircut” We had a good laugh at that one. Funny now that I look back at this, it was a haircut comment that got me all worked up last time I saw Styx too! Tommy seemed to enjoy having familiar faces around him and he acknowledged us several times throughout the night. He dropped his slide down to me which I always enjoy getting but since I had several already, I passed it on to someone else. When Chuck came out, Kelly told me that if we got one of his picks, Mark would love to have it, so again I pulled out my sharpie, made up an impromptu “CHUCK PICK PLEASE” sign and waited for him to come to our side of the stage. He saw it immediately and flashed me a smile and handed me a pick. These are rare, and its one of the harder items for me to share, but Mark is a great guy and he did let me have his seat so I turned around and gave it to him as soon as Chuck was out of range. Tommy ended the show with the band introductions which included the newly added headstand, center stage, by Lawrence Gowan and JY sobbing into a towel because they have to go. As much as we begged and pleaded, Tommy still gave Todd the signal and they wrapped it up and threw out the usual goodies. Todd walked up to the front of the stage and handed me his towel, Mark got a frisbee, everyone had a pick or two and Renee had this wonderful memory of Tommy serenading her. All in all, a very good night but it wasn’t over yet!We passed on the bus wait and decided to go back to our room’s balcony to enjoy the band that was playing below in the atrium. Everyone in the rooms around us were doing the same and we all were shouting back and forth how much fun we had and sharing pictures. The music was loud but it was good and to bring my two favorite acts together, they even played Cherry Bomb by John Mellencamp! Add a little Rick Springfield and it would of been a grand slam evening. We partied until we ran out of beer and Jan’s sister in-law had already went to bed on us. I don’t know how in the world she managed to go to sleep with all the noise but she did. Once we shut the door, it was a little more quiet but you could still hear the band for another set. Renee and I tried to sleep but we were just too excited and kept finding something else to say. I still can’t believe she has never read the internet novel “Awakenings” which features Tommy as a vampire as the main character. I sent her the link and she was printing it out a chapter a day from work. I think she was going to read it last weekend but I haven't heard from her yet to find out what she thought. Just telling her about it was enough to keep me awake for hours but eventually we all fell asleep and morning came much earlier than expected. They all packed up their things and headed home and I went back to bed for a little longer before I had to leave for Waukegan.After milking every minute I could before checkout time I loaded up my bags in the rental car and headed towards Chicago. Learning from my friend Patti on my Baltimore/Brooklyn trip, I had pre-printed all my directions and had them filed neatly in a notebook in the order I was to use them. I enjoyed the drive thru town and was noticing all the train stops that I had passed on my last trip to Chicago trying to get a sense of where things were from the highway verses the train. I didn’t have too much trouble finding the hotel I was staying at but when I got there, they didn’t have any non-smoking rooms available yet so I decided to drive down to the theatre and see if they had released any new seats yet. When I got there, the crew was moving the truck from the front load-in doors to the back parking lot. The guy at the box office tried to sell me a seat on the far left side in row J when one of the crew came up behind me and said “not bad” and I had to laugh. Can you imagine me sitting in Row J? I had already decided that if I couldn’t come up with a decent ticket, I was going to return to my hotel room and catch up on some much needed sleep. I asked him about the 40 seats in the pit and if any of them had been sold. We had been told that they gave them all to the band for a fan club sale but that never happened and we all assumed the tickets went to the band for their friends and family like last year. But like last year, we were expecting the band to turn in a few seats they didn’t use right before the show. The guy didn’t look like he was interested in my theory so I left and said I'd check back later. So not much later, I went back and asked again, this time he came up with seats even further back but I must of won him over cause he leaned towards the window and told me to check back in about an hour or two. I drove thru town looking for the restaurant everyone was meeting at for dinner before the show and had the hardest time. I called my friend Kim and asked her to look up the address for me and I still couldn’t find it. It was suppose to be on the same street as the theatre but I just couldn’t find it. I was about to head back towards the hotel to a drug store to waste some time when I saw a fellow stygian in the car next to me. I honked my horn and changed the direction I was turning and followed her back to the theatre. It was Kathie who some of you may know from her terrific, wonderful, website www.styxtraveler.com Kathie is the one to turn to if you want to know when, where and how Styx is performing and how to get the best seats. We got out of our cars and talked a bit and she graciously told me if I couldn’t get a good ticket, she had an extra one I could have. It had only been about 40 minutes since my last box office visit but I decided to give it a shot anyway and Kathie joined me. This time when I walked up to the window, I noticed the guy had a piece of paper in front of him and he was typing furiously into the computer that he was calling up tickets on earlier. As I got closer, I noticed the Styx oval logo on the top of the paper and I was sure this was a list of the band’s tickets and which ones were given out and which ones they could re-sell. He smiled at me and said, you only wanted one right? I said yes and waited nervously as he typed... “I have one in Pit, Row A” “SOLD” I shouted, woohoo, it wasn’t on Tommy’s side, but it was front row and I didn’t even have to pay ticketmaster fees! I paid for the ticket and we started to walk away when it dawned us to see if they had anything else because we had heard a few people the night before say they didn’t have tickets yet. He didn’t at the moment, but it was obvious he had a big list and Kathie was going to call some people and spread the word that they were starting to release the pit seats. Having scored my ticket, I was ready to head back to the hotel and check in so I could get ready for dinner.I parked in front of the theatre and decided to walk to the restaurant which we finally found thanks to the box office. Seems there was a south and north side of the street and we didn’t drive far enough. It wasn’t too bad a walk, but it was cold. I was freezing by the time I stepped inside and almost fell on my face because I didn’t see the step down. It was probably this display of grace that made the table of stygians recognize me and call out my name as I started up the stairs to look for them. It was a nice, small bar and the food looked delicious but unfortunately they never brought me my order so I left without eating. When I got down to my seat at the theatre, I was excited to find Kathie, Jen RN, Wisconsin Jan, LisaB and her cousin all around me. I had the last seat in the first row but the second row extended farther so the rest of them were able to stand at the stage also. LisaB had managed to get her tickets from a broker earlier in the day but I’m sure they were worth the extra money she had to pay. At one point, they had taken picks the band had given them and stuck them to their foreheads. It didn’t take long for Tommy to notice and comment how he liked it and did it himself saying “now I’ll always know where it is” After that, several of the guys made comments off mic and even Chuck stuck one to his forehead during the encore. Sometime during the first few songs, JY looked my way and noticed me and with a big smile mouthed “you found a ticket, great!” I answered back yeah thinking to myself, he knew those tickets were going to be released all the time and he probably knew us diehards would be the ones to buy them up. Now being on Larry’s side of the stage is not where I would choose to be but it does have its advantages. One, Tommy does come over to do his main speeches and this is a great spot to get pictures of him standing still. Two, you get the best view of the famous Fooling Yourself Spin. Three, its usually someone from this side of the stage that gets picked to play Tommy’s guitar during Come Sail Away. Luckily, I knew I had a little extra time at the hotel to prepare for these events after finding out where I was going to be sitting. When Tommy came over and started to introduce Chuck for Fooling Yourself I held up a beautiful “SPIN, TOMMY, SPIN” sign with a picture of a toy top on it. He glanced down and smiled then held his guitar straight up in the air and spun around several times. When he finished, he looked down at me and said “You’re Welcome” making me laugh and mouthing the words thank you, thank you, several times before he had to get on with the song. I thought of my good friend Kim during all this, she loves the Tommy spin and was one of the ones that yelled for him to do it at the Brooklyn show. He use to do it all the time but for some reason stopped recently. Guess I’ll have to keep this sign in the bag if we want to see him do it in the future. The last sign I had made up simply asked if I could play. I showed it to him at the beginning of CSA and I thought he had seen it but wasn’t sure. I showed it again a little later in the song and he nodded to me as to say “sure, don’t worry bout it” Now that I was sure he knew what I wanted, I could just wait to see if I had been good enough to have my Christmas wishes answered. As the song wound down, Tommy came running back from the other side of the stage and passed me up, he looked down and said “where is she” I grabbed my sign and yelled over here, over here, and he back up a few steps and dangled the pick over my head for what seemed like forever before lowering it down and placing it in my hand as he knelt down in front of me offering his guitar for me to play. After a few seconds, he gave picks to LisaB and her cousin and we all joined in. This was my second time to play but I think it was better than the first time in Brooklyn. Something about how he ran over to find me. Was a nice Tommy moment to end the night with. After the show, I was tired and hungry, so I just ran thru a drive-thru and went back to my room. I was alone this night with no one to talk to about everything that I had just seen so I fell asleep quickly. The next morning, I gathered up my stuff and head back towards the airport again. Luckily, I had left early because I had trouble finding the rental car place despite my neatly organized directions. I checked my bags and grabbed a diet coke to take on the plane with me. I took my seat, turned on my iPod and replayed the previous nights show in my mind and before no time at all we had landed. It was a good trip, the boys were good, the friends were good, the food was good when I managed to get it. It was the ultimate way to end the year. I got to see a lot of shows in 2006 but it looks like I’m going to have to choose more carefully in 2007. Not only is the long awaited ShawBlades mini tour starting in March, but I’ll have to find time to catch a regular Styx show this summer before Mellencamp goes out to promote his new cd “Freedom’s Road” in the fall. Until then,Peace, Love & Music