MR

Hey gang, yes I am still alive (for those who care) and thought I would share my TV viewing last night. DDY was in studio with the local PBS pledge drive, he was chatting with the hosts about the Soundstage release and Styx history. No new news but DDY was funny in his campy sort of way. He led the phone bank in a chorus of Babe during one break and his wife and daughter were helping on the phones.

They played a one hour edit of the show and included the staples and two of the Hunchback songs. No Castle Walls

With your pledge you could have the CD, DVD or both depending on the amount. They also announced a special concert in KC on April 23rd and with a $250 donation you got 2 tickets and the DVD & CD. $500 got you backstage for a meet and greet at the show as well as the other stuff. The tickets are handed out in the order of you calling in and pledging so the sooner you got in the better the ticket. General public tickets aren't on sale until March.

They repeated the broadcast after DDY left for nearly 3 hours of coverage.

Later,

KCKevin

KCK, I'd gladly trade the Hunchback songs for Castle Walls and Black Wall.......

I'm still in limbo about the track listing of the DVD vs the CD.....did they offer any such info ?

In WI, they offered the DVD for a $99 pledge, or 2 tickets to either the Appleton or Rockford shows + the CD for a $150.00 pledge.

I think Dennis must have had a bad experience with Styx while in Madison, he's basically circled us with Milwaukee, Rockford, Appleton and Iowa shows, but has never played here......and didnt do the studio appearance for WPT either. I wonder what he has against Madison ?

I'm sure he likes Madison PBS Pledge Drives go on throughout the year, depending on when the local PBS station would like a Pledge Drive and how they're doing with money. I don't think he's going to be playing in Madison anytime soon, especially since he just played Milwaukee, then he's playing in Appleton, Rockford and Chicago. But then again, you never know.

BTW, I personally like his Hunchback songs. I enjoy listening to all of his music. I'm so glad that he plays/sings such a variety. Listening to Castle Walls when I was much younger, it was never one of my favorites that I had to listen to over and over. But WOW, listening to it live was unbelievable!! It's one of my favorite songs now.

When he was here in Milwaukee promoting his show on the local radio stations, he mentioned that he was going to add "First Time" to the set. I asked him about this after and he made a funny comment (which I can't remember word to word) that he was joking. So I don't know if it's going to be added or not. I never can tell if he's joking or serious - LOL

I would love to hear him play "Queen of Spades" live

The only thing he said was that there were 10 songs on the DVD that were not in the one hour PBS showing which he said included Castle Walls and Black Wall. He later mentioned the 3 new songs but didn't specify if they were on the DVD or the CD.

He only mentioned the wife's book and the song once.

It is my experiance that the DVD and CD will later be available to the public via normal channels. Artists do these things and PBS helps fund them with the understanding that they are a benefit for PBS viewers and the artist wants to benefit PBS. Once that has happened, they go out to the general public at normal prices.

ELO did this last year and others have done it before. It always turns out the same so just be patient.

I am glad I watched it for free, DDY's voice sounded fine (although he was changing some notes he couldn't reach on a couple of songs) but the arrangements were not as strong and full as Styx. I think that is mainly due to the bass player and guitarist not being as good as DDY has worked with in the past.

Bottom line is I would expect the DVD set list to be the one posted in another thread (whatever that means) after the show was recorded last April.

KCKevin

Madame, at some point, I will invest in the Hunchback CD, and give it a listen as a complete piece of work......For me, those songs just didn't fit in with the rest of the show. I think Mike Eldred has a great voice and Dawn Marie sounds good too, just not sandwiched in the middle of a Styx / DDY greatest hits show.

I will burn myself a copy of the CD minus those 2 songs, and pull the original out if/when I am in the mood for that genre'

Kevin, I agree about the fullness of sound.....I believe alot of the problem was a lack of a 2nd guitarist....when there was a guitar solo, the rythem guitar part wasn't there, and the Orchestra could not really fill in for that effectively on a few songs.

I actually liked the Guitar players solo work, again, maybe not as talented as TS or JY, but some of his work stood out to me....he was perhaps the co-main reason ( along with the Orchestra ) the Black Wall works so well on this CD.