August 12, 2013
When the Indiana State Fair released the list of artists that would be performing on the Free Stage, I was very surprised to see the group Styx!
I have so many memories of their songs from different stages of my life. When I was in Junior High School (1977-1978), my friend Teresa had their album Pieces of Eight and we listened to it over & over again. Renegade was one of the hottest songs from that album. I have vivid memories of slumber parties in her basement with that song blaring.
Flash forward to 1983…I’ve just graduated from high school. It was a summer evening and I was “cruising the ‘bash” with some friends when we see two good looking guys on a motorcycle. We flirted with them and told them to follow us to a party we were going to. One of the guys (KML) had the new Styx album Kilroy Was Here (on cassette, naturally) and the first release was Mr. Roboto. I would begin dating that guy – he would be my first true love – and I thought we would get married some day. He even took me to a Styx concert in Indianapolis. Our “love” only lasted 6 months…but I still remember all of that (except for the breaking of my heart, of course) fondly.
So when I saw that Styx was on the schedule I knew we had to go.
We decided that we should get to the fair early because we figured there would be a lot of 40somethings and 50somethings, that would also want to see the band. We arrived at the Free Stage 1 1/2 hours before the group was supposed to perform and all of the seat under the pavilion were already taken! We had to sit in the back bleacher section. And then, they didn’t take the stage until 7:30pm – the schedule said 7:00pm. But it was worth the wait (aside from the super annoying people next to us). And although Dennis DeYoung hasn’t been with them for some time, the group sounded just like I remembered them. They played for over 1 1/2 hours! We did nothing else at the fair that night. We had gone purposely to see them and I’m very glad we did.
So many people came to see them!
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