Saw the Don Felder - Styx - REO Speedwagon show at Jiffy Lube tonight (and missed the walk-off, arghhh!) It was kind of a weird show. When Felder went on at 7 PM the place was maybe 1/2 full. He did a set mostly consisting of Eagles classics, including a wonderful rendition of Hotel California in which he was joined by members of the other two bands. Styx did the middle set and was easily the crowd favorite (Styx and REO are rotating the middle and closing slots each night of the tour.) Even then, there were still lots of empty seats, maybe 20% of capacity appeared unsold. By the time REO came on to close the show, half the seats were empty, and people continued to leave throughout their set. The crowd seemed mostly north of 50, and was very tame. Rarely did anyone in our section stand, which was kind of weird for me - I mean, it's a rock concert, not a Broadway show. I didn't like sitting.
Styx was fantastic, tons of energy and they sounded great. Lawrence Gowan is a much better Dennis DeYoung than Dennis DeYoung at this point. Shaw and JY seem to be ageless. REO sounded good except for the lead singer, Cronin is now 66 and doesn't have much power left in his voice. He got through the ballads, but really struggled for the rocking songs. My personal highlight was "Back on the Road Again." The crowd, or what was left of it, seemed to enjoy the rest of the classics. I was hoping that the show would close with a three-band jam but that didn't happen.
