August 17
1975

Styx with Clown and Legend

Lake Andes, South Dakota

Personal Significance -- This was the first true concert I ever worked at.

A lot of people really dislike Styx these days. Fortunately, we got to work with them when pompous rock had not quite reached its saturation point yet and was still kind of fun. Tommy Shaw was not in the band yet. Equinox was not yet released, but they opened with "Light Up" and played several songs from that album.

I was doing sound for a band named Legend from Toledo, Ohio. We had just relocated to Lawrence, Kansas, on the urging of Larry, our new booking agent. He was based there, which was the primary reason, but being in the geographical center of the country made a lot of sense for a touring band wanting to branch out.

We had just arrived in Lawrence and stopped by Larry's office to check in. Our first gig was to open for Styx in Lake Andes, South Dakota, due to an illness on the part of a band named Alpha Centauri from Greeley, Colorado. We got their slot. Needless to say, Larry the Agent gained a lot of credibility by giving us a concert for the first gig. We considered this to be a good omen, despite the number of mirrors we had broken on the trip from Toledo to Lawrence.

If you look on a map, Lawrence is between Kansas City and Topeka. Lake Andes, South Dakota is just to the west of Yankton, near the Nebraska border. This was only a 300-mile trip. Six hours max. For some unknown reason, we left the day before we were supposed to be there, breaking our regular night travel routine.

Our bass player, Steve, was pulling the trailer with our gear. Since we didn't need to bring a PA system, it was a lighter load than usual, but there was still a Hammond organ in the trailer, so "light" is a relative term. Between the August afternoon heat, the age of Steve's car, the extra time we had allotted ourselves, the decision to take highway 81 instead of I-29, and the broken mirror factor, it was inevitable that in the middle of Nebraska was the perfect place for said car to decide it needed a new timing belt (chain?), which would require most of the engine to be disassembled in order to repair.

Somehow, we made it to the show in plenty of time. This was an outdoor concert, a couple hundred yards from the edge of the lake. The carpenters were still in the process of building the stage and electricians were climbing up telephone poles to tap into enough power for sound and lights.

The people slowly streamed in and there were a few thousand in the audience, which was a mystery in and of itself, as the nearby town only had about 700 people. We could not figure out where the hell the rest of them came from.

A band called Clown (with KISS-style make-up) opened the show with a set of sturdy, radio-friendly covers. To be honest, I didn't pay as much attention to the band as I did to what was happening at the soundboard, where the band's soundguy was being babysitted by the soundtech in charge to make sure he didn't touch anything besides the vocal tracks.

We had brought an effects unit, a Roland Space Echo, which was a tape delay far superior to the old and much-abused EchoPlex. This was kind of necessary. Legend's set included stuff like "Aqualung" (Jethro Tull) and "Heartbreaker/Livin' Lovin' Maid" (Led Zeppelin), "I Am the Walrus" (Beatles) -- songs that more or less required specific effects in specific places to sound authentic.

It's worth noting that neither Clown nor Legend had an original song. Neither did Alpha Centauri, the band we replaced. We were all touring bar bands and many club owners in the 1970s actively discouraged the playing of original music.

Anyway... I slid into my spot at the soundboard and Mr. Tech Guy tells me that I'll do vocals and he'll do everything else. The band starts playing, and I'm giving Tech Guy an incessant set of instructions. "Add some reverb to the snare. Okay now take it away. More kick drum. The bass guitar sounds thin. Keyboard lead coming here, bring it up. Getting ready to switch to guitar lead..."

After two songs, Tech Guy says, "I'm going to get a drink. I'll be right back." He reappeared about 45 minutes later, during the windout of our last tune. In the meantime, I was thoroughly enjoying my first taste of a pro concert mixing console and the kick-ass PA that went with it. A good time was had by all.

Styx came out and were better than we were. For one thing, Dennis DeYoung had a synthesizer and Mike, our keyboardist, sadly did not. Styx had two guitarists. Their greatest strength was their vocals. Styx didn't use effects at the time (although I saw them about 8 months later and they had a Roland Space Echo), so there was no sweetening of harmonies. They either hit it or they didn't. And they did.

The ride home was pretty happy, except for the part where we had to get a small-town South Dakota cop to open up a gas station so we didn't have to sleep in the town diner.

So we get home and divide up the money, less the expenses of the emergency auto repair and gas. I made $10. The guys in the band maybe made $35 or $40 each.

And yet, we all considered it to be a worthwhile adventure.