STYX

I like 'em, but I'm with toho, early stuff only. They were an interesting mix of rock and progressive elements that did not alienate mainstream audiences. Like others have said, Young and Shaw's compositions tended to be heavier and even on the abysmal Kilroy, James Young wrote Heavy Metal Poisoning which was a pretty good tune in the context of the concept. The good stuff is the stuff that didn't get radio play.

As I've said before, as a kid, I learned to sing with vibrato by singing along with Dennis DeYoung and learned to use my falsetto, head voice effectively by singing along with Steve Perry! Who says you can't learn anything from rock 'n' roll!

The Grand Illusion is a great album, progressive, melodic and heavy.

Fat Freddy wrote:

tohostudios wrote:

Who opened when you saw 'em FF?

My opener was Jackyl, complete with chainsaw!

Yea, we had Jackyl too. Was never a big fan of those guys but they put on one helluva funny live show.

At one point Jesse James DuPree grabbed a guitar, jumped off the stage and started running up and down the aisles of the venue (Radio City Music Hall in NYC), making all kinds of random guitar noise, he jumped up onto an empty seat in front of my friend and I, played the riff from "My Sharona," then he looked at us and said "I wrote that!" We were dyin'.

That's awesome!!!