Chicago my kind of band
We now interrupt Gowan for today’s Editor’s Notebook column.
With no disrespect to drummers and bass players around the world, just about everybody identifies a band by its lead vocalist.
And, because of that, very few bands are unable to land hit records on the radio after the voice of the band leaves.
There are only a handful of exceptions — Van Halen, Genesis and Chicago.
And Chicago did it at least three times.
First came the great horn-band songs of Terry Kath in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Kath died tragically and Peter Cetera, who shared leads with Kath during the early days, took over the band with David Foster in the 1980s and they wrote an incredible string of pop songs. Then Cetera left the band, and Bill Champlin and Jason Scheff kept the hits coming.
You’ll hear songs from all three eras, I’m sure, when Chicago performs Sunday evening at Prospera Place. Many of the original members (the horn section, mostly) are still there.
They were the second concert ever in the history of the South Okanagan Events Centre and they were terrific. We rated them in Okanagan Top 10 as one of the best concerts ever at the SOEC.
I grew up in the Cetera/Foster era, and didn’t realize until I saw them in concert how superb their early material was.
“25 or 6 to 4” is one of the greatest songs to come out of the 1970s — but I don’t know what the hell they were talking about.
“Wishing You Were Here,” “Saturday in the Park,” “If You Leave Me Now,” “Hard to Say I’m Sorry/Get Away,” “Will You Still Love Me” ... take me to heaven.
Tickets for Chicago are available online or in person from Prospera’s box office.
Does anything say Labour Day in the Okanagan more than the Interior Provincial Exhibition in Armstrong? What a fabulous event. Thank you to everybody who makes it happen.
I apologize in advance if there are any mistakes on our puzzles page which you can find on Page B5 today. Our regular puzzles guy is away on holidays so I drew the short stick.
It looks like Colin Basran is more or less going to go uncontested in Kelowna in his bid for re-election. There are people who have taken out mayoral papers — nine, at last count — but nobody who is expected to challenge.
Penticton is going to be another story as it looks like there are going to be at least three serious challengers for the mayor’s chair.
Welcome back Melanie Eksal to the Okanagan Newspaper Group family. Melanie was a student intern in Grade 12 at the Penticton Herald and has since graduated from UBC. She is doing a short two-week work experience at the Kelowna Daily Courier. You may have noticed her byline in today’s paper.
Happy birthday to columnist Jim Taylor.
... But you’re a strange animal, I got to follow. James Miller is valley editor for Okanagan Newspaper Group.