Styx Tix and the Old Cold

My head cold is really sinking me today – I feel like hell, and I’m pretty sure I look like it, too. See? You don’t need to waste your time telling me, “Hey, Tom – you look like crap.” I’ve already said it for you! So if I tend to ramble today and my spelling sucks more than usual, you'll know why.

Regardless, I’m supposed to go to a concert tonight, and even though it’s my favorite band of all time (Styx!), I’m not really feeling up to it. Hopefully my Day-Quil pills will kick in here shortly, and I’ll be ready to rock out.

I’ve been a Styx fan since I was a kid – they were the first band I ever really connected with their music. Their first tour through Seattle that I remember was in January 1980, in promotion for the newly released Paradise Theater album. Alas – I was a child of 14, and try as I might, I couldn’t convince my Mom to let me go to a rock concert. No fair, is it? C'mon, Mom - it'll just be me and 15,000 of my closest friends. What could possibly go wrong?

Ah, but I’d get my chance three years later, when Styx was booked for a July tour date at the Seattle Center Coliseum for the Kilroy Was Here tour. Tickets went on sale in May 1983 on a Friday AM.

Now, to understand ticket sales in the pre-Internet days, there was only one place in Seattle where you could buy concert tickets in 1983 – Fidelity Lane. It was a little ticket shop in Downtown Seattle, where you’d have to camp out all night in line to buy tickets for the big shows. Sometimes the lines for tickets would go for blocks – I remember watching the lines for the Rolling Stones concert in the Kingdome go for at least 6, 7 blocks. People used to tell stories about waiting in line 8 – 10 hours just to buy tickets from Fidelity Lane. Sounds nuts in this automated day & age, but that's how it was done.

For the really big concert tours, the thing to do was to grab your sleeping bag and camp out all night in line in front of Fidelity Lane, waiting to buy. Sure, you were in the heart of Downtown Seattle, and odds are high you’d wake up to find a wino sleeping on top of you, but hey – it was considered “fun” and “an honor” to sleep on a cold, dirty, gum-filled sidewalk to buy concert tickets.

So this is where I was on a Friday morning in May 1983, waiting to buy Styx tickets. I officially didn’t camp out overnight, but I did show up in line at about 6:00 AM. There were a couple of hundred people in line in front of me, but I knew it’d be okay – the show was supposed to be General Admission anyway, so we’d just have to be sure to be there early for the concert. So in line I stood.

And oh, yeah. Have I mentioned yet that I was supposed to be in school that morning? Taking final exams? Well, that’s the price I paid for my devotion to seeing Styx live. I skipped school – skipped my final Senior exams – for a chance to see my favorite band play live. I hope they at least have the courtesy to acknowledge this someday with some backstage passes or something...

Well, I got my tickets, hopped Joe Metro for a ride back to school, took what remained of my tests, and the rest is rock & roll history, right?

Not so fast.

You see, the band members of Styx had themselves a bit of a falling out during the tour, and they never made it to the West Coast portion of their tour. They at first postponed the concert from July to November, then in October they up and cancelled the rest of their tour entirely, including the date in Seattle.

At first they tried to blame it on an injury on one of the band members – Tommy Shaw had cut his hand on a broken window – but then the truth had come out – the whole “Kilroy” and “Dr. Righteous” aspect of the rock spectacle that was the Kilroy Was Here tour had bombed big time, and the band had literally fallen apart.

So Styx was now “broken up” – Dennis, Tommy, and JY were putting out solo albums – and I’d never had a chance to see them play together. Shit.

But fast forward to 1991 – Styx had sort-of regrouped, and were touring once again. So I bought tickets again (this time for Seattle’s Paramount theater), and somehow scored row 1 seats without having to camp out all night for them. And sure enough, the concert did go off without a hitch. While I can’t exactly say “it was worth the wait”, it was a great show.

I saw them play again in 1996 in Omaha, Nebraska, then again in 1999 in Sioux City and again in 2002. So this will be my fifth Styx show, Lord willing and my cold meds don’t knock me out before showtime.

Now I’m off -- I’ll go crank up their newest CD, try to pretend that I’m working, and then hopefully have a great time with Mr. Roboto and friends.

And at least I don’t have to skip school this time...