Date Title
Feb 26, 2004 Lowell
Feb 27, 2004 Emotional Night
Mar 18, 2004 Hello Atlanta
Mar 18, 2004 Z93 and Styx Rock Atlanta Hard Rock Cafe
Mar 22, 2004 Did You Know?
Mar 27, 2004 Life Is A Beach
Apr 01, 2004 Does This Look Like A Man Who's Ready To Go Back On The Road?
Apr 09, 2004 No, Your Honor, I Said I Was Going To TAMPER With Her
Apr 10, 2004 Thank You Tampa/St. Pete
Apr 15, 2004 Let's Get This Engine Started
Apr 26, 2004 Styx 1st To Record At Chess Studios 2120 S. Michigan In 15 Years
Apr 27, 2004 We're Here! This Is The View From My Room
Apr 29, 2004 Johnnie Johnson Speaks at 2120 News Conference
Apr 29, 2004 Chicago Tribune
Apr 30, 2004 Hey Memphis!
May 03, 2004 Getting Close
May 06, 2004 Thank You Cleveland, Hello Indianapolis!
May 07, 2004 Styx Follows VH1 Outing With Headlining Tour
May 08, 2004 Giving New Meaning To The Term "Front Men"
May 11, 2004 VH1 Music First
May 15, 2004 Texas Views
May 16, 2004 Houston Ruled
May 18, 2004 Albuquerque, We're Here, We're Caffeinated, and Ready To Rock!
May 19, 2004 Thank You Alarqueque
May 19, 2004 Luke AFB, Thanks For The Hospitality
May 20, 2004 VH1 Music First
May 25, 2004 Greetings From Colorado
May 28, 2004 JY: Styx On Tour
May 28, 2004 Hello, Salt Lake City
May 29, 2004 2120 Signals New Era For STYX
May 29, 2004 Thank You Idaho Falls, Idaho and Hello George Washington
Jun 05, 2004 LA Times On Eric Clapton's Monumental Weekend
Jun 08, 2004 Ronald Reagan
Jun 19, 2004 Jay Mouton Reviews Chatanooga Show
Jun 20, 2004 Pittsburgh, PA
Jun 23, 2004 Hello, NYC!
Jun 23, 2004 Todd Rips It Up In NYC
Jun 25, 2004 VH1 Music First
Jul 04, 2004 Hello, Ohio
Jul 07, 2004 What A Difference A Couple of Days Make
Jul 07, 2004 New Member Of The Family
Jul 09, 2004 Aidin Vaziri insults Styx and Styx Fans
Jul 10, 2004 Hot Springs, Arkansas, you Were Awesome
Jul 11, 2004 Making Up Was Easy To Do
Jul 12, 2004 Spokane
Jul 15, 2004 So Long Spokane
Jul 21, 2004 We'll Be Right Back
Jul 22, 2004 Does This Look Like A Man Who's On Vacation
Aug 03, 2004 Styx at the Vic
Aug 07, 2004 Hello Colorado
Aug 07, 2004 Ole' Ole' Ole' Oh Lay Thah!!!
Aug 08, 2004 Rockin' At The Buffalo Chip
Aug 14, 2004 The Dells Sure Rang Our Bells
Aug 15, 2004 Nick Rogers reviews Styx in Springfield, IL
Aug 20, 2004 Hello Boise
Aug 22, 2004 Greetings From The Road
Aug 24, 2004 Suiting Up For The Show
Aug 24, 2004 Alaska, YOU Are Awesome!!!
Aug 26, 2004 We Love Alaska
Sep 10, 2004 We Are Here, Are You?
Sep 11. 2004 We Are Still Here, Encore!
Sep 15, 2004 Hello Montana
Sep 15, 2004 Montana Rocked!
Sep 17, 2004 Hello, Washington State
Sep 17, 2004 Puyallup, WA, Rocked In The Rain
Sep 18, 2004 Massula ROCKED Hard!
Sep 24, 2004 Albuquerque Was A Smokin' Gig
Sep 25, 2004 Unleashed In Henderson...
Sep 28, 2004 Back On Our Heads
Sep 28, 2004 SMILE/Thank You Alpine and Vejas!
Sep 30, 2004 Saratoga Ruled!
Oct 01, 2004 When In Ventura, Do What The Venturas Do!
Oct 06, 2004 Today In The Life
Oct 08, 2004 Hello From Konocti Harbor
Oct 15, 2004 Styx Is In Rama, Mama!
Oct 16, 2004 Gowan in Gowanville
Oct 23, 2004 Hola De Puerto Rico
Oct 25, 2004 Loose Lips, Synch Ships
Oct 26, 2004 New Orleans In October...
Oct 28, 2004 New Orleans, Updated
Nov 18, 2004 Inmates Running The Assylum at 135 Stations
Nov 21, 2004 If It Weren't for Flashbacks, We'd Have No Memory At All...
Nov 22, 2004 Styx To Play Christmas Party
Nov 27, 2004 Styx Rocked The Boat
Dec 04, 2004 All Star Jams
Dec 06, 2004 Styx To Play Christmas Party
Dec 07, 2004 Q104 Christmas Bash Was A Smash
Dec 09, 2004 Back In The Studio

Aidin Vaziri Insults STYX,
And STYX Fans

July 9, 2004

 

Hello Friends,

Over our long and wonderful career we've survived many an irate, uninformed writer's sarcastic words, but the article I read today deserves your attention and perhaps even a response to the writer. It's not even an article about STYX, but about our friends RUSH, whom we respect and admire and who are STYX fans themselves.

See paragraph seven: "Yet while old peers like Styx and Asia have resigned themselves to playing between pig races and hot-dog-eating contests at county fairs, Rush is still able to pack major sheds."

There is a lot that's insulting about this paragraph. For example, that playing fairs and festivals in front of thousands of music fans is something to be ashamed of, and that you are somehow tainted if you play there or if you attend as a fan. Just so you know, major acts go to great lengths to be considered for these venues, many of which are not near a major amphitheater. He must not have consulted Pollstar to see just what STYX has been up to over the past few summers or he would have not been so quick to insult us all. It's also clear that he has no idea what goes on at a STYX concert these days.

If you want to read the entire article, scroll down. I've pasted it below.

Here is a copy of the e-mail our manager just sent to Aidin. Please feel free to send your own comments to this poor misguided writer who owes it to his readers to be a little better informed.

-----------------------------
" For your information Styx co-headlined major shed and Arena tours with Journey and REO Speedwagon and most recently with Peter Frampton in the past few years. Since 2000 they have continually placed in Pollstar magazines top 50 tours every year. In addition to this their touring includes various fairs and festivals across the nation where they play to tens of thousands of fans at the same venues that some of the biggest artists of today’s music also perform. Styx enjoys playing these events and judging from the attendances our fans enjoy going to them. None of these events are held “between pig races and hotdog eating contests.” Maybe if you were more in touch with these types of events and the clientele that attends them, and probably read your articles, you would not write such uninformed articles to your readers.

Cheers,

Charlie Brusco"
--------------------------

If you would like to respond, and please do, send your comments to:

chronfeeback@sfchronicle.com

attention: Aidin Vaziri
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

It is not by any means clear how Rush has lasted this long. The Canadian prog-rock trio, which celebrates the 30th anniversary of its first release with a pair of Bay Area shows this week, has done just about everything wrong.

Its early album covers were impaired with paintings of mutant owls and Salvador Dali knockoffs. Bassist and vocalist Geddy Lee sang in a high register that suggested that he had a badger attached to his testicles.

And then there were the songs -- horrendous little things like "By-Tor and the Snow Dog" and the six-part, 20-minute "The Fountain of Lamneth" -- sci-fi epics so far out even Pink Floyd would have found them too preposterous.

If nothing else, wasn't the mere fact that they were a Canadian prog-rock trio enough? That should have put the brakes on their career within the first three minutes.

Even Lee -- whose speaking voice, incidentally, is pleasantly smooth --

is a little amazed the band made it this far. "When I listen to those records now, there are moments I love and moments where I go, 'What the hell were we thinking?' " he says. "You can almost smell the hash oil coming off them."

Yet while old peers like Styx and Asia have resigned themselves to playing between pig races and hot-dog-eating contests at county fairs, Rush is still able to pack major sheds.

It's all the more baffling because Lee, drummer Neil Peart and guitarist Alex Lifeson, who later came up with respectable FM rock staples like "Tom Sawyer" and "New World Man," never actually delivered a huge crossover hit like "Come Sail Away." They didn't even have a "Mr. Roboto."

"Maybe that's part of the key to our success," Lee reasons. "We never ran the risk of overexposure."

That's an understatement. Most of the critics hated Rush. And the ones that didn't simply ignored the band. Rolling Stone didn't review any of their albums until 1982, when it finally offered a measly two out of five stars for "Signals," calling it a "wasted effort."

Lee says he and the other members just took the punches and kept moving. "When you're young, you feed off of that stuff and it kind of stokes your fire, " he says. "And if you stick around long enough, you get enough positive criticism that offsets whatever negative criticism."

The band's last studio effort, 2002's "Vapor Trails," earned a whole three stars from the rock bible.

But it's this stubborn determination -- the band has released 17 studio albums, four live discs and a handful of compilations -- that has earned Rush the kind of class-A obsessive lunatic fans that other bands dream about. Although chances are that fantasy wouldn't include a following made up mostly of grown men who are in love with comic books and video games.

But Lee says even that is changing. "A couple nights ago, there were girls in the front playing air drums and singing all the words," he insists.

It seems unlikely that Aerosmith's Steven Tyler would have to stop the conversation to make the same claim.

This is the first time Rush has officially acknowledged an anniversary. Its 25th was undermined by tragedy.

In 1997, shortly after completing a tour supporting the disc "Test for Echo," Peart lost his 19-year-old daughter, Selena, in a car accident. Less than a year later, his wife, Jackie, died of cancer.

The band stayed off the road for six years.

"It was just awful," Lee says. "I don't know how you get through that, but you do get through it. You just put one foot in front of the other and try to carry on with your life."

The experience took so much out of the members of Rush that their latest project, "Feedback," sees them regressing to the very beginning -- even before the high-minded heavy metal tendencies sank in -- with stripped-down covers of eight classic rock tracks by the likes of the Yardbirds, Buffalo Springfield and Love.

"It feels like we're wiping the slate clean," Lee says. "It was a good reminder to not overthink things. Sometimes our worst enemy is not just our intellect but our neurosis."

They were bound to get it eventually.

 


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