MR

After viewing those videos from the Largo MD show, i saw some more of the Borders shows that Tommy did and hearing him sing Come Sail Away, wow, i really enjoyed it.

Everyone seems to have a problem with Lawrence always singing it, how about Tommy??

I've always said - going back to about 1999 - that TS should sing more of the DDY canon. Not sure why he doesn't. Look at the "Borrowed TIme" medley from a few years back. It was just fine.

Agreed. Tommy sounds great on Borrowed Time and Come Sail Away.

I'm sure he would stay away from tunes like the Best of Times, and of course Babe.

GrandIllusionist725 wrote:Agreed. Tommy sounds great on Borrowed Time and Come Sail Away.

I'm sure he would stay away from tunes like the Best of Times, and of course Babe.

Look, they need a ballad in that set. Yes, it's a more "rocking" Styx, but there is not a lot of balance in that set. It slows down if they do SMB or Crystal Ball. Maybe you can throw Fooling Yourself in that category, but that's about it. Ballads are not evil. I'm not saying play Babe, but yeesh ... S/B is not "rocking". I would welcome more of that in Styx ...

StyxCollector wrote:Look, they need a ballad in that set. Yes, it's a more "rocking" Styx, but there is not a lot of balance in that set. It slows down if they do SMB or Crystal Ball. Maybe you can throw Fooling Yourself in that category, but that's about it. Ballads are not evil.

I think the current set, staleness issues aside, is actually paced really well. The lower-dynamic sections of SMB, CB, Snowblind, Lady, CSA, etc slow things down plenty for my taste (and I think Just Be is still being featured regularly.)

Nothing wrong with ballads and nothing wrong with balance, but IMO "balance" doesn't mean rockers and ballads in equal amounts. That's one of the challenges that arises when you have an overload of ballad hits and feel compelled to play every one of them at a gig (witness the 97 tour.) It becomes stand up/sit down every other song, all freakin' night. Fine if you're into that sort of thing, but it's not what I'm looking for in a rock show.

That said, if they ever wanted to thrown in Best Of Times with a TS vocal, I'd have no complaints.

stabbim wrote:I think the current set, staleness issues aside, is actually paced really well. The lower-dynamic sections of SMB, CB, Snowblind, Lady, CSA, etc slow things down plenty for my taste (and I think Just Be is still being featured regularly.)

Well, to each his own. SMB isn't played every night and Just Snooze ... oy. CSA and Lady are your only real pacers guaranteed in every set, and CSA ends the main part.

stabbim wrote:Nothing wrong with ballads and nothing wrong with balance, but IMO "balance" doesn't mean rockers and ballads in equal amounts. That's one of the challenges that arises when you have an overload of ballad hits and feel compelled to play every one of them at a gig (witness the 97 tour.) It becomes stand up/sit down every other song, all freakin' night. Fine if you're into that sort of thing, but it's not what I'm looking for in a rock show.

Now, I'm not saying make it a 1:1 ratio. One or two in a 75 - 90 minute set (like 10, maybe 15 mins worth at most) is perfectly fine. Plenty of rock time.

stabbim wrote:That said, if they ever wanted to thrown in Best Of Times with a TS vocal, I'd have no complaints.

Agreed. I don't know to this day why they just never did this.

I think they try to balance the lead vocal time on stage is why Tommy doesn't sing on more songs.

Also, Just Be is no longer being featured. Everything All the Time is the new fall featured song.

StyxCollector wrote:

stabbim wrote:Nothing wrong with ballads and nothing wrong with balance, but IMO "balance" doesn't mean rockers and ballads in equal amounts. That's one of the challenges that arises when you have an overload of ballad hits and feel compelled to play every one of them at a gig (witness the 97 tour.) It becomes stand up/sit down every other song, all freakin' night. Fine if you're into that sort of thing, but it's not what I'm looking for in a rock show.

Now, I'm not saying make it a 1:1 ratio. One or two in a 75 - 90 minute set (like 10, maybe 15 mins worth at most) is perfectly fine. Plenty of rock time.

Sure. I'm just saying that in terms of pacing, I'll take what's going on now over what was going on, say, the last tour with DDY in the band.