Do you try to see them at least once a year?
Are you disappointed they’re no longer playing the big venues?
In concert, do you wish they’d stick more to their hits, or their great songs from their heyday never heard on the radio, or do you also enjoy their newer songs written since they stopped writing hits?
Do you ever wonder why they haven’t “hung it up” like so many of their other contemporaries?
How has their demographic changed?
How far have you travelled to see them?
I try to see Kansas once a year, but it doesn’t always work out that way. With proper planning and a few hours of wasted time waiting for gates to open and suffering through an opening act, I can see Kansas nowadays, front row, top-dead-center for free, maximum $20.00 wheras my other favorite 70’s band, RUSH, will cost me up to $600.00 for the same seat. (Unfair comparison, I know, but I do like both bands about equally and value my wasted time at quite a bit less than $580.00)
Kansas has some great vintage tunes they’ll never play live because their set is usually only ninety minutes and The Pinnacle, for example, is more than nine minutes long; the fans want to hear all the hits, so the lesser-knowns usually get crowded out. Given only ninety minutes, I probably would not appreciate too many songs from their post hitmaker days.
I’m glad they’re still on the road because it brings me back to the days of my youth for a little while. Oftentimes I am amazed that they’re still touring thirty years later with four of the original six members.
You still see mostly the hard-core fans aged 35-55 in old Levi’s and black concert t-shirts, usually boots and sometimes bandanas. But there are exceptions. I saw Kansas at Ravinia Festival (very hoity-toity) once a couple of years ago and I was the only non-yupster in the pavillion. Lots of khaki long shorts and Polo shirts. At the county fairs, you also get a lot of younger kids checking it out just off the Tilt-A-Whirl who don’t really seem to get it.
Because I live near Chicago, I’ve never had to travel more than twenty five miles to see them on a nearly annual basis.