STYX, Corn & Toast
By Mark Stevens
What I remember the most about playing for 15,000 people is the months
leading up. The pure, hot white fear that would shoot from my head to my
toes and reverberate back, smothering every other possible thought. The fear
carried a refreshing, upbeat message: “Who the hell do you think you
are?”
I might be standing in the shower. I might be trying to fall asleep. Or I
might be in a meeting at work when the fear would surge and my head would
lock around the image of our band up on stage playing a giant summer
festival, opening for STYX. At that point when the surge would come,
however, I would simply revert to my well-known power of positive thinking.
Maybe we’d all die in a car crash on the way there, for instance. The road
over the Grand Mesa was plenty steep and perilous – there were plenty of
chances to just sail off the edge. That would solve lots of problems. Maybe
lightning would strike moments before our introduction and the show would be
scrapped. Maybe the people who booked us would call up and say “we were
just joking, of course. We know your band sucks.”
But, in fact, our little band called Toast had played the same festival, the
Olathe Sweet Corn Festival in Olathe, Colorado the year before. Olathe is
250 miles from Denver, out on what’s called The Western Slope in Colorado
(west of the Continental Divide). Between Denver and Olathe there are at
least 123 bands (I stopped counting) who can do exactly what Toast could do:
cover The Beatles, Stones, Delbert, Jimi, Doors and maybe throw in an
original to show we’re clever with words and know how to ever-so-slightly
modify a ZZ Top riff and call it ours.
So how did we end up in Olathe? Through the secretary in the office where I
worked in Denver. How else? The secretary’s daughter worked in Montrose,
which is the “big city” just south of Olathe. The daughter knew the
mayor of Olathe. The daughter had seen our band in Denver prior to moving to
the STYX, I mean sticks. One day my secretary said if we wanted to play the
“corn festival” to go ahead and send a CD to the mayor; they had a
committee that sat around and listened to bands and decided which ones to
book.
This didn’t sound daunting. Sounded like fun. Sure, we had a CD. It was
recorded at Herman’s Hideaway during an amateur night where each band gets
30 minutes. You could have had five monkeys twiddle the knobs randomly on
the deck for an hour prior to the show and you would have created a better
mix. After I sent the disc to Olathe – this is important – my secretary
brought in a photograph of the festival’s outdoor stage, which by itself
was bigger than the largest club our band had ever played. The PA stacks on
stage would eclipse a split-level house. The racks above the stage held what
seemed like hundred of lights. The main steel proscenium around the stage
told any average music fan one thing: good bands play here.
So, of course, our CD did the trick. It fooled them. We got invited out to
play two afternoon sets, alternating with one of Denver’s best known and
longest-running bands, Chris Daniels & The Kings, who were just back from a
European tour promoting their eighth or ninth independently produced CD and
backing a single that was climbing the charts in Germany. Toast, a band with
sporadic gigs at best, playing most private parties, was given two 45-minute
sets and one of its best pay days ever, enough to underwrite maybe the first
three hours of the one-night stay in a Montrose motel. The Kings had two
one-hour sets. In between, according to the schedule, were the corn eating
contests, right there on stage (sheets of plastic below the tables to make
for easy clean-up of the kernels spewed during the furious gnawing.)
Okay, a quick word about the corn. This stuff is magic. It’s small, white
and melts in your mouth. The kernels jump off the cob. They give sweet a
whole new flavor. It’s corn candy, straight from Mother Nature. Olathe is
the capital of this strand of corn and, for years, the farmers celebrate the
peak of the harvest with a giant festival. In the early 1990’s, the town
leaders set aside a permanent 37-acre park that is used for the one-day
festival each year. The town population goes from 2,000 to 15,000 as people
gather from all over the region to eat corn (given away free), wander
through hundreds of craft booths, enjoy some food, take in a few bands, see
a big national touring band, and end the night with a giant fireworks
display. It’s All-American down-home fun. It works. Throughout its 15-year
run, the festival had booked such bands as The Mavericks, BTO, Kansas, Nitty
Gritty Dirt Band and, on the night of our first trip to Olathe, Creedence
Clearwater Revisited (not Revival) for the big evening rock show.
The first year out was “gulp” enough, at least for me. Toast had had its
share of fun, for sure. We played big long parties routinely – mostly for
friends. We could go for three hours without straying too far into
unfamiliar terrain or repeating ourselves or stretching “Long Train
Running” into a 20-minute jam. We played a few clubs. We had opened for
Hazel Miller, known for her hot rhythm and blues band and her backing vocals
with Big Head Todd & The Monsters. She sat in with us a few times, too, and
developed some chemistry with our very entertaining lead singer, an engaging
and dynamic performer who left every ounce of energy on stage.
Anyway, Toast had played some benefits at good venues but it wasn’t as if
the city of Denver was checking the papers every week to see where we would
turn up next. We were an average little cover band. Toast was a six-piece,
born out of a band that got together at The Denver Post. Mike, Jim and I
showed up for the first practice and get-together. There was one slight
problem as we gathered in Jim’s living room. We each had a Fender Strat.
Thinking a band might need more than a three-guitar attack, I switched to
bass and Jim bought a keyboard that looked like the control deck of the
Starship Enterprise. Then we brought in a drummer and some back-up singers
and went to town, for about four gigs. I won’t go through all the morphing
of that band into the more semi-permanent Toast but the band that went to
Olathe included John the dentist on keyboards, Paul the architect on guitar,
Mike the cartoonist on guitar, Kevin the database manager on drums, Mark
(me) the PR guy on bass, and Mark the newspaper editor on lead vocals. By
the time of the second Olathe trip, we had also picked up Rick, another PR
guy, on congas. We had our moments, like playing three songs at the
legendary Little Bear in Evergreen, but the band was a side-project. We’d
practice three times one month then skip three months. We’d have three
gigs in a row and then wait months for the next. The farthest we had ever
traveled, say, was for a wedding in northern suburbs. The last gig before
our second trip to Olathe, we were booked to play at a golf course on a
Friday evening. Exactly one person (my bass teacher) came to listen. People
going through the buffet line in the next room closed the door so they could
talk and not have to endure whatever noise we were foisting upon them. Our
psyches were ready. Sure they were.
The first year was bad enough. There was Chris Daniels. The Toast drums go
here, on a giant rolling platform to make for easy band changes. The sound
board is out there and if you get a good pair of binoculars you can see it
from the stage. Heck, a sound man just for the on-stage monitors? Who had
ever heard of such luxury? We managed. We played our sets. We got a few
people dancing, even in the afternoon heat. We survived.
And the kind Olathe folks – best in the world, really – called again the
next spring and asked us back. Sure, I said, why not? But could we possibly
ask for a bit more money just to cover the cost of driving over and staying
in a motel? Well, she said, this year we’re moving you up to the opening
act, in the evening. And you’re opening for STYX. That slot, she pointed
out, would mean that our fee would be tripled. Well, then.
And then, the fear. This year festival-goers wouldn’t just be expecting
some casual afternoon tunes. This year, corn eaters wouldn’t have other
options than listening to Toast, such as eating corn. This year, the only
thing that would be going on at the time Toast would be playing would be
Toast playing: 15,000 people waiting to hear “Lady” and “Mr. Roboto”
would be asked to sit back and enjoy our version of “(Standing On) Shaky
Ground” or guitar player Mike’s poppy original, “Things Fall Apart.”
No, I’d never been a big STYX fan. Too sappy, too corny (sorry about
that). Too self-indulgent and in that whole Foreigner / Journey / Boston /
Queen world of over-the-top showmanship, the kind of stuff that Spinal Tap
skewered beautifully. Give me blue jeans and flannel shirt and some blues
riffs, not this pomp. But heck, this was STYX, one of the biggest hit
machines ever. But, still. Would my fingers actually feel the bass strings?
Could I actually look out into the crowd? Would my knees stay together and
function in the way they were designed?
I drove to Olathe in fear. The car stayed on the road. The day broke clear
and beautiful. No lightning. And nobody called to say it was a joke. Toast
set up in the motel’s conference room for an afternoon jam and warm-up.
Something magical happened. The music took over. We looked around at each
other and to a few people listening and nothing needed to be said. We were
listening to each other, we were confident. We had practiced the living crap
out of our 45-minute opening set.
As afternoon started to fade, we drove the eight miles or so to the
festival. We worked our way past thousands of people streaming into the
site, our big parking permits and backstage passes clearing a dozen
checkpoints. We climbed up on stage and started setting up, in front of
STYX’s giant stack of Marshalls and Ampegs. We studied the three portable
closets full of guitars, different colors for each song. Such posers! And
the wardrobe, too. We marveled at the calendar hung near one guitar
player’s station – a calendar of topless women for his personal
inspiration, no doubt. We studied the big black drape that covered their
drum set, up on risers. And the sheet of paper by the monitors: “This
Show: Olathe Corn Festival, Olathe Colorado. Next Show: Sturgis, South
Dakota tomorrow night.” (To avoid one of those “Hello, Cleveland!”
moments.) And then we walked around behind the huge bank of amplifiers and
realized they were all gutted-out fakes: nothing more than props (although
complete with fake red ‘on’ lights for the roadies to flip at the right
time) to show that STYX was still big and tough and loud. The only on-stage
amps they played through were tiny little suckers, which were hidden.
We sampled the back-stage buffet and our jaws dropped as the monster STYX
buses pulled up and there were Tommy Shaw and James Young right there
sampling their own much improved buffet right across the picket fence that
separated the headliners’ poached salmon from our cold turkey subs. Real
stars, thirty years on down the rock and roll road. Right there. They were
already an oldies touring band, I thought, by the time I thought about
playing bass.
And then it was time. Somebody introduced us. Somehow, we were all plugged
in and ready. Kevin gave the opening drum roll to “Things Fall Apart”
and we were off in a cloud of dust. The sun was setting. I felt a breeze. We
actually looked around at each other. It was working. I think I even saw a
head bob appreciatively in the front row during “I Should’ve Known
Better.” Mark and Mike nailed the harmony. I snuck a peak and saw the
teeming masses off in the festival grounds, huddles of thousands here and
thousands there. The “VIP” seats in front were filling up. Paul cranked
through “The Letter,” including his stinging solo. Rick cranked the
congas during the standard Doobies cover. Somehow, my bass seemed to plunk
along somewhere close to lock-up mode with the snare. Close, I said, not
perfect. And when we got a signal to play one more song and get off the
stage and that meant dumping two songs. We huddled in a flash and decided to
jump to our standard closer, “Sunshine of Your Love,” which we nailed. I
heard applause. No roar. No flickering Bic lighters, but a solid round of
claps. We unplugged and started packing up as an army of roadies moved in.
It was over. Our 33 minutes of serious spotlight time. And I wanted it to
start all over again right then, so I could really enjoy it.
The next year, Toast waited for the phone to ring. We sent the Olathe folks
a CD with new, more professional tracks recorded in a real studio without
monkeys at the controls. But the phone call never came. Randy Travis was
going to open this year. Probably not a good fit for Toast. Oh well.
There’s always the golf course.
Mark now plays in a band called Falling Rock: www.fallingrockband.com