Cash & Chicago!!!

 A couple of events this past week need to be commented on. No politics, no rants, nuthin...except praise for The Johnny Cash Concert Experience and Brass Transit.

First, Johnny Cash. Now I dont care who you are, and I'm a rocker, but Johnny Cash was the man. He was cooler than 99% of his fellow artists, he had something to say, and he was a champion of the downtrodden. I never had the pleasure of seeing Johnny Cash live, I thought about it once when he and his band were at some high school in Council Bluffs but I had no idea where that high school was so I missed my opportunities. 

The Johnny Cash Concert Experience features a live band of great musicians, including the "only woman who ever played lead guitar for Johnny Cash", Debbie Horton. What you get is the live band and a giant video of Johnny singing songs from his TV show. So, you get it all, Ring of Fire, Walk the Line, Boy Named Sue, Folsom Prison Blues. all from the horse's mouth. The band takes over on some songs that no video exists for and it's still great. The thump thump train like guitar is there, the solos are there and also video of Johnny's son, John Carter Cash, telling stories of his father and mother. 

If you love Johnny Cash as much as I do, it's well worth the money and effort to see.

Now Brass Transit, a Chicago tribute band. They consist of 3 horn players, a bassist and a guitar and a lead singer who sounds exactly like Peter Cetera. Now Terry Kath cannot possibly be replaced, and his songs are sung by a guy doing the best he can and it's still great.

Being a believer that Chicago from 1968-1978 is one of the greatest runs any band had in the 1970's and after that was pure unadulterated crap from a classic band going all Air Supply in an attempt to appeal to whom exactly, I worried that post 1978 Chicago and its lousy "hits" would dominate. But it did not. It was heavily concentrated on the early greatness. Oh yeah a couple of the wimpy stinkeroos got in there, but the concert was spot on musically. The horns were a carbon copy, the guitar solos were Kath-like and the vocals from Ian Jutsun, were Cetera-like. Though they left out my favorite Chicago tune, Dialogue Parts 1 and 2 (the contrast of Kath and Cetera's voices is unreal), the rest of the early hits were all there. It ended with a rocking 25 or 6 to 4 that had gray haired old ladies up and dancing like the teenaged dancing queens they were back in 1972.

Brass Transit is younger than the current version of Chicago, who I've seen twice in the last 5 years, and I hate to say but they are just as good. It's a good time if you get a chance to see them. 

Is a symphony orchestra necessary to play with this band? Absolutely not. In fact, the symphony often got in the way. But it was a small price to pay. The opening notes of I'm a Man and Make Me Smile made me forget there actually was a symphony orchestra also playing (don't get me wrong, I love the Omaha Symphony when it stays in its own lane).

If you love Chicago, you'll love Brass Transit.