It was like a homecoming. STYX at the Fox Theater in St. Louis Saturday night felt like going to see your family and hometown friends after being away on a long trip and everyone shows up to welcome you back.

First of all, the theater itself is awe inspiring. Because we have a couple of new guys on our crew, we decided to have a nice long soundcheck/rehearsal to let them establish their moves and queues (you know how fast paced the show is-imagine jumping in cold as a member of our crew). On top of that our crew is like the Green Berets of rock so any new guy coming in feels the peer pressure. But Eric and Jeff, the new crew members, were not intimidated and carved out their niche in one afternoon, which made the transition virtually seamless.

Soundchecking for us is a funny thing--we tend to digress (much like this story) and just as one of us will say, "Okay, let's play something from the acoustic set," someone else will start a song we have never played before, and next thing you know we are jamming to high heaven. And we are always surprised when we get through these instant arrangements. Someone had stopped by in the afternoon and asked if we were going to play any Damn Yankees songs and so we broke into an acoustic version of "High Enough" that sounded so good we put it into the set Saturday night. I have a feeling it might stay there for a while now!

It was great seeing so many of you whom we have come to recognize from your frequent visits to our concerts. Saturday night must have been a reunion for many of you because we noticed more of our regular crowd than we have in a long time. Go Listees and Armada!

My best friend, Bob Meehan was in town at a Crossroads event and he came over with Frank, Amy and Mike to hang backstage with us. It was Bob and Mike's first time to see this band. Needless to say there were lots of smiles and some good laughs in the Fox Theater dressing room, which by the way, is spectacular, rivaled only by Radio City Music Hall. (Its walls are adorned with self portraits and signatures of Theatrical legends and Rock icons, and now even a terrible drawing of STYX 5.0 by yours truly) Bob, if you don't know, is also the dude on the cover of Damn Yankees' "Don't Tread" CD and has been a great friend to STYX as well as the Yanks over the years. And so it was a very special evening having him there. And what a night for his first time with this band! From the opening song, this audience was taking in every word and every note. The sound was so clear that we were all on our toes and loving every minute of it. St. Louis is fortunate to have such a legendary venue for rock shows. Such shrines are a thing from a different time, when building a monument strictly for entertainment was not uncommon. This was long before the multi-screen-mega-movie-theater concept was ever imagined. It is no longer practical and many beautiful theaters have gone the way of the wrecking ball, but somehow this one survived, and the lucky fans in St.Louis are the proud beneficiaries. Not to mention this band! St. Louis, we are coming back to see you in 2000! Thanks for an unforgettable night.