How to go
Who: Dennis DeYoung: The Music of Styx
When: 8 p.m. Saturday, rain or shine
Where: Veterans Park as part of the Summer Arts Festival
Cost: Free
SPRINGFIELD — “Welcome to the grand illusion.”
No kidding.
Dennis DeYoung can’t even begin to imagine wanting to go to a Guy Lombardo concert when he was a kid.
But for a guy who would receive 88.9 percent of his Social Security benefits if he retired today, the former Styx singer and keyboardist can pull off the kind of Jedi mind trick the schmaltzy band leader never could — he doesn’t seem old.
Earlier, more superstitious generations might have accused him of dabbling in the black arts or of being a vampire.
Actually, it’s easier to kill a vampire than to remove “Come Sail Away” from the play lists of the nation’s rock radio stations.
And that’s why on Saturday night, when DeYoung plays the Summer Arts Festival, don’t be surprised if you see people down in Vets Park who very well could’ve been conceived to “Babe.”
“Here’s the thing I never could’ve imagined,” DeYoung explained last week during a phone interview. “There’s going to be the vast majority of people in that audience who first and foremost know the songs. There will be a percentage of people who know me.
“But there will be 13-, 14- and 15-year-old kids mouthing the words to the songs and looking at me and not seeing a 64-year-old. That is the miracle of miracles. All these young girls are smiling at me and I’m turning around wondering, ‘Who the hell are they looking at?’ ”
It’s always a sign of quality journalism to quote anonymous comments from YouTube, but one of the 5,313 comments attached to the 1979 Styx song “Renegade” during the course of its 2.9 million views seems to just sum up this whole phenomenon.
“My dad just walked into my room,” somebody posted last week, “and told me to turn that crap up.”
So the answer should’ve been blatantly obvious when asked, “So, how ya doin’?”
“I can’t complain because I’m the envy of millions,” DeYoung half-joked. “Everybody wants to be a rock star. Even an old-fart rock star. If I tell you my prostate’s sore, what’s the point? I dreamed the dream when I was a kid, and the dream came true.”
Oh, sure, it’s easy to diss the power-balladry and lite-prog of Styx.
But it’s also worth noting that, back in ’79, a Gallup poll named Styx the most popular rock band in the land with the nation’s teens.
Right now, the only way life could get better for DeYoung — assuming, in fact, that his prostate isn’t actually sore — is if the current incarnation of Styx could make nice with the guy who wrote and sang most of the big hits.
Him.
“If it were up to me,” he said, “I’d still be in Styx. I gave my life to that name. Styx. It wasn’t Dennis DeYoung. It was Styx.”
So, what’s the beef?
“I don’t think it’s worth discussion,” DeYoung confessed, “and I think you’d have to ask them.”
Longtime guitarist Tommy Shaw leads the current version of Styx, entitling them to “Blue Collar Man,” “Renegade” and “Too Much Time on My Hands” — three hits Shaw wrote and sang.
But DeYoung on his own might actually be more Styx than Styx when you consider that he wrote and sang “Lady,” “Come Sail Away,” “Babe,” “Mr. Roboto” — you’re lying if you say you don’t like that one — plus the classic-rock radio staple “The Grand Illusion.”
“The audience,” DeYoung said, “they don’t care how the sausage is made. They want to enjoy the sausage. When they came to see me, they would be unfulfilled by not hearing ‘Blue Collar Man.’ ”
Short of reuniting with Shaw, DeYoung has done the next best thing — hired a dude who sounds like him.
“I’ve not been happier in 10 years,” DeYoung said.
It’s all thanks to guitarist-vocalist August Zadra, who was spotted on YouTube by DeYoung’s son singing “Blue Collar Man” with a Styx tribute band.
Zadra was offered the chance of a lifetime — playing with the actual co-founder of Styx — last year.
“If it were up to me,” DeYoung said, “I would be in Styx. But short of that, having August there is a blast.”
Contact this reporter at amcginn@coxohio.com.
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