An
amazing thing happened next. Tommy had been saying on the Styxworld site for
weeks how he had "Love Is The Ritual" stuck in his head and he
really wanted to play it live. Well, Glen stepped up to the mike and started
to talk again, and said that they were having a blast, and they were going to
play a song the band hadn't performed live in nine years, that they had just
barely rehearsed. Well that was all it took to get a HUGE scream out of me!
Other people were starting to sit back down - NO WAY. At times during the show
people had been tapping me on the shoulder while I was standing, not to make
me sit down but to just get me to move out of the way to get back to their
seats. When this song started I knew I was not sitting down again, and I just
reached behind me and flipped up the seat of my folding chair! People
must have come and gone behind me for the rest of the evening - I was
oblivious!
I went
completely crazy during this song - I couldn't believe I was there for the
first occasion of its revival, plus I just really love this song! I was on my
feet the whole time, sang every word, clapped the whole entire time except for
throwing my shiny hands up in the air for every HEY! Everyone in front of me
and around me was sitting, so Tommy was looking at me, the first person he
could see who was standing, and he would smile and nod at me while I was
singing along.
They threw a
long instrumental section onto the end of this song, and Tommy did the guitar
solo. I think on the album Glen had done the solo, since he was playing
guitar at the time (Edge Of The Century, if you don't know, was the
album where Glen was Tommy - well, Tommy with big black hair). Since Glen is
on bass now, though, Tommy took the solo onstage. Todd was incredible on the
drums in the bridge section. Magnificent job by everyone for a song "just
barely rehearsed!"