Kansas is Prog! Listen and Decide.

I have been a great Kansas fan since 1977 . 

I saw Kansas at Viña del Mar Festival and it was an excellent experience. Kansas arrived to Viña replacing Journey because Journey's frontman was ill, so everything was done very fast, in a couple of days Kansas was in Viña. That night was sold out but after knowing the many people gave back their tickets and many others, prog rock fans like me, bought tickets. So there were literally lots of fans among the attendance that night watching Kansas (mostly 30-50 ys old). The live sound was OK, but TV sound was horrible (later I watched a tape recorded by a friend and I realized of this), Steve Walsh voice at the beginning sounded a bit weird but after a couple of songs he recovered his normal voice, this was due to the fact that Viña has a rather cold humid weather in the night as it is by the sea, so it is not strange for singers to have some trouble with their voices. 

In Viña Festival usually programs are made months before so fans know in advance what artists or bands will be on each day. So each day has a different audience depending on who is going to act. This year Peter Frampton was here and apart from the fact that media didn't like it (Chilean media didn't like and didn't undertand rock prog music, Chilean media only like pop ), PF was cheered by the audience. Same happened with media in the early 1980s when Police was in Viña (I was there that night also hahaha, and also saw Andy Summers walking by the street, nobody knew him ).

Edited by Hendrix - April 19 2008 at 17:33

They're prog, ok but the vocals have never apeal me except for Song for America..

Good band musically, but don't really show new stuff.

Have to side with Ivan on this one. Musically, these guys were powerful with a hint of smoothness. Anchored by Ehart and Hope, I feel these two comprised one of best rhythm sections in music. Livgren and Walsh were the perfect yin and yang combo from the first album through Monolith. The differences between the two became pretty glaring for Audio Visions, which made for a little unbalanced album. I still love that one, though.

Ivan's also right in how Kansas brilliantly combined two styles: you had the progressive qualities of Yes married with influences from America's heartland...primarily country music and some blues. To say that Kansas did nothing new really shows a lack of knowledge for Kansas.

And in my opinion, in his prime nobody could touch Walsh on vocals. Excellent range and clarity with that American soul that Elvis had. Still remember being drawn in by Steve's vocals at a very early age.

E

Ivan_Melgar_M wrote: cacho wrote: They're prog, ok but the vocals have never apeal me except for Song for America.. Matter of opinions, I believe before his throat problems, Steve had an excellent voice, one of the most powerful in the market, and their lyrics are very good ones Kansas had a great advantage, Robby Steinhardt took the lead vocals frequently and sometimes they could aford the luxury of two lead vocalists and two frontmen acting simultaneously. cacho wrote: Good band musically, but don't really show new stuff. NOTHING NEW???????? Kansas was probabvly the first Prog band who added Country Music and Hard Rock elements to a Symphonic structure, they had extremely complex arrangements and were one of the first Symph bands that sent kwyboards to a second place in importance basing their sound mostly in violin and violin interplay with keys. Maybe today don't sound so new, well all bands have aged, but in 1974 when they relleased their first album and 1971 when they joined officially, they were really an innovative band, totally different to any of their peers. Iván

Yeah I know they fused country with hard rock, but really doesn't apeal me the vocals and the symphonic sections.
Yeah I described myself badly on saying "nothing new"

Some say Kansas is a prog band with some rock tunes.  Others say Kansas is a rock band with some prog tunes.  I belong to the first group.  There are prog songs aplenty on their 70s albums as well as their studio album of the 90s and their last studio labum.  Peace.