By Tammy Everitt
The Herald Bulletin
ANDERSON, Ind. — Kansas, the American rock band with popular hits like “Carry On Wayward Son” and “Dust in the Wind,” will appear Saturday for two sold-out shows at Hoosier Park Racing & Casino in Anderson.
The progressive rock group, which formed back in 1970, performs 70 to 80 shows a year with three of its original members — Rich Williams, guitar; Steve Walsh, keyboard; and Phil Ehart, drums.
“We’ve been promoting our most recent CD, which came out in late 2009, entitled ‘There’s Know Place Like Home,” said guitarist Rich Williams, in a recent phone interview.
For the CD/DVD, the band recorded a concert at Washburn University’s White Concert Hall in their hometown of Topeka, Kan., featuring a full symphony orchestra. The DVD hit No. 5 on the Billboard’s Music Video Chart during its debut week.
“It’s like a Kansas catalog of old material,” said Williams. “However, this is not our first recording with a symphony, as we did a recording with the London Symphony about 12 years ago.”
Other rock bands to go “the symphonic route” as Kansas did include Metallica, KISS and The Scorpions, back in the 1990s.
Having more avenues for getting their music out to fans nowadays — the Internet along with Guitar Hero and Rock Band video games — has brought the 1970s and ’80s bands a new generation of fans.
“We don’t see any performance royalties from the video games as they are not original recordings,” said Williams, “but the concert crowds have gotten a lot younger thanks to the exposure from the Internet and the video games.”
Williams said that today’s kids like to discover things on their own and get tired of being force-fed what is cool.
“My teenage son was downloading some music and thought it was really cool that he had discovered a great group,” said Williams, chuckling. The group was Crosby, Stills and Nash.
Perhaps dad will introduce son to groups that influenced Williams, including the Rolling Stones, The Supremes, Yes and Genesis.
Chances are Williams’ son has never heard of some of dad’s other favorites like Herman’s Hermits and Mitch Ryder and the Detroit Wheels.
