As you’d expect, 35 years makes for some serious experience, and these guys still crank out the album-oriented rock like it’s fresh. The guitarist and bassist still do the “rock ‘n roll shoulder rub” during solos and Walsh’s vocals haven’t deteriorated. Maybe they don’t run around the stage like they used to, but this is still a performance and they mean it. Never once during their 90-minute set feel that it was contrived or being slogged through for a paycheck.

Kansas made their name in rock by playing radio-friendly prog, and they shine best when riffing and letting off extended guitar solos. You know it’s a Kansas song when it goes from wailing riffage to a polite, semi-soaring keyboard line in 5/4 time. It still works, though it can get a bit tedious on record if you’re looking to jam out. As for seeing it live, it’s a feat to just see musicians pull it off, and the moment they delve back into a riff or solo is magic. These guys are one of the top bands of the 70s for a reason, and it’s a position they still hold with dignity and reason. As I stood in the audience, it hit me that these guys are one of the early progenitors of metal. No joke. Take another listen to some of their earlier stuff. Take out the classical keyboard parts and add some anger, and these guys are two steps from Metallica.

Admittedly, I’m not the most knowledgeable Kansas fan, but I spoke with a few after the show and they were more than pleased. In fact, only six songs featured on the band’s Best of Kansas compilation were featured, and two were the encore: “Point of Know Return”, “Song for America”, “Dust in the Wind”, “Hold On”, with “Fight Fire with Fire” and “Carry On My Wayward Son” as the encore. Bands from this era are commonly expected to have broken line-ups and have a show rife with nostaglia. For Kansas, this clearly isn’t the case. They’re still out, doing what they’ve done for the last three and a half decades. They’re “carrying on”, if you will. OK, that was low. Clearly, though, the band has not yet hit their point of no return. No, really. Hold on. Given the quality of their current live show, it’s gonna be a while before Kansas is dust in the wind. Thank you and good night.

Will Thompson enjoys putting somewhat carefully chosen words in relatively meaningful order.

WIMBC gives a perf that is absolutely; so; watertight in reaction to the chaos the band observes around them.  The terrific control is killing: their mathematical precision cuts like a razor blade through the otherwise black prog.  It’s like Lewis Carroll splintering within from the points of numbers until he writes absurdity that profounds academics.  This experimental is the gold of Niekrasz’ and Brown’s existentialist quest for the transcendent.  “Why do humans exist other than to get away from the necessity of making food and shelter?”  Brown rhetorically asks the rather hazy night air, “To escape that excess and find time to do something else . . . art.”  If experimental rock is the gateway from this finite dirt, as Brown expresses, then Why I Must Be Careful has gone (oh no) to infinity, and beyond.  

Why I Must Be Careful– playing in a venue near you.  15 July 09, 7.00 p.m., The Empyrean Coffee House, Spokane.

Molly is a freelance journalist and a senior at New St. Andrew’s College with a special interest in postcards and goldfish.  She writes for The Loop 21 and keeps – sporadically – the blog A New Amsterdam.