So Kansas played here in Baltimore last week, and we went to check it out. I've always enjoyed the music of Kansas, but I'm not a superfan or anything, and I pretty much stopped paying attention to the band after "Point Of Know Return", so I wasn't really familiar with any of their new material. But it turns out they only played two newer songs, sticking instead to their classic first four albums, with lots of tunes off "Leftoverture". Sonically, the band sounded GREAT, which I thought was interesting as I'd heard so many reports in the past that the band cannot pull it off live any more. Well, this is totally untrue, as they sounded excellent. The show was a bit short (ending at about 88 minutes, including the "Dust/Wayward Son" encore), but I'd recommend seeing the band.
The place was almost full (the only bigger crowds I've seen at the Ram's Head were for Steve Vai and Anthrax), and the crowd was totally into it. I had dreaded the thought of being in a room full of people that only came to hear "Dust On The Wind", but it turns out that the vast majority of the crowd were huge fans of the band, singing along with old classics like "Icarus" and "Song For America". It did sort of depress me when thinking about the current state of music and prog, though, as it occurred to me that probably half the folks there would really like a current band like Cryptic Vision, yet will likely never get a chance to hear them (again, in case you're not aware: US radio blows). I also thought it might have been a good chance for a local prog/prog metal act (like Odin's Court) to be an opener, again exposing folks to a current band. Ah well.
As always, we cannot go out to a show without encountering obnoxious drunken jackasses, who this time we found about 30 seconds after stepping into the place. At least they moved away from us quickly. I also continue to not understand why someone would go to a show and then spend the entire time yammering on their cell phone and/or to the idiot next to them. Some people need a good tasering...
dt
The place was almost full (the only bigger crowds I've seen at the Ram's Head were for Steve Vai and Anthrax), and the crowd was totally into it. I had dreaded the thought of being in a room full of people that only came to hear "Dust On The Wind", but it turns out that the vast majority of the crowd were huge fans of the band, singing along with old classics like "Icarus" and "Song For America". It did sort of depress me when thinking about the current state of music and prog, though, as it occurred to me that probably half the folks there would really like a current band like Cryptic Vision, yet will likely never get a chance to hear them (again, in case you're not aware: US radio blows). I also thought it might have been a good chance for a local prog/prog metal act (like Odin's Court) to be an opener, again exposing folks to a current band. Ah well.
As always, we cannot go out to a show without encountering obnoxious drunken jackasses, who this time we found about 30 seconds after stepping into the place. At least they moved away from us quickly. I also continue to not understand why someone would go to a show and then spend the entire time yammering on their cell phone and/or to the idiot next to them. Some people need a good tasering...
dt
