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Kansas1974 --
Valentine Theatre, Toledo, Ohio I know several musicians who haved judged the band Kansas on the basis of "Dust in the Wind" and "Wayward Son". While these two songs got a lot of airplay, and were decent tunes the first 1000 times I heard them, I think they're some of Kansas' weaker tunes. So when I encounter this bias, I play "Belexes" for them to open their minds a little. The first time I saw Kansas was in 1974. They were playing at the Valentine Theatre in Toledo, Ohio. It was a nice room, only seated maybe a thousand, if that many. I had never heard of the band, never heard a song, but the bass player of the band I was doing sound for had insisted that we all go, and secured some seats in the third row. As we looked around the room before the lights went down, we noticed that pretty much every musician in town was there. It was one of those moments where you realize that most of the people in the crowd already know something you don't. I hadn't even heard of these guys but obviously the rest of the tuneheads had. The band opened with "Lonely Street". Steve Walsh's vocals were scary good, the overall band sound was incredibly tight, every person on stage was obviously extremely talented, and together they created a sound that was rich, dynamic, heavily textured, sweeping and still very rock and roll. Today they call this progressive. In 1974, the stuff they were playing sounded like the new cutting edge. It was intense. And it wasn't three chord rock. These guys were playing some really intricate, meaningful stuff. Plus, they were breaking the rules. A violin? In a rock band? And an awesome keyboardist that plays lead guitar really well, too? The band I worked for added "Belexes" and "Bringing It Back" (a J.J. Cale tune) almost immediately. By mid-1975, we had moved to Lawrence, Kansas at the request of our agent, who was located there. It wasn't unusual to spot Robbie Steinhardt in the music store and some of the guys from my band met some of the members of Kansas at a bar called Mother's in Topeka and had a few drinks with them. One night, later in the year, Rich Williams called from Erie, PA. They had finished their show and were sitting around the hotel room. He called just to chat, see what was going on in town, whatever., promised to get together with us and play some flag football in the park (they never did). I was only 20 years old and it was the first time anyone I could classify as a rock star had ever called out of the blue. So that was a seriously awesome thing to happen. Especially since the rest of the band was out somewhere. When they came back, I was able to say, "Thought you guys should know... Rich Williams called while you were gone. We talked for a while. He said to say hi." A very good day for the lowly sound guy. 1976 --
with Atlanta Rhythm Section This show gave me a level of admiration for Kansas' engineer, Jeff Glixman. Atlanta Rhythm Section opened the show. They did a good job, as well as could be done in the Sports Arena, which was a hockey rink, and one of the most acoustically nightmarish places I've ever seen a show at (but not the worst -- that honor belongs to the enclosed dome in Cedar Rapids, Iowa where I saw The Eagles). The place seemed designed to naturally amplify crowd noise, which had a tendency to wreak havoc on most acts' sound. Kansas came onstage and sounded like a record. In the Sports Dungeon. That was no small feat. 1977 --
with Blackfoot I went to this show with Gary Smith, the guy who sat next to me every night and did lights. Before the show, we were hanging out near the fence that separated the crowd from the backstage area. Dave Hope walked over and started chatting to us. He was convinced he knew Gary. We thought he just remembered Gary from the night at Mother's. Not too long after this show, I happened to see the Dan Fogelberg/Tim Weisberg album, Twin Sons of Different Mothers. On this aptly titled album, Tim Weisberg's picture looked so much like Gary that we decided that Dave Hope may have just thought Gary was Weisberg. |
 Personnel Phil Ehart
-- drums |
