The 50th anniversary tour for the band Kansas has gone on so long it’s bled into Year 51.
“This third leg is probably the 51st anniversary now of the formation of this particular version of Kansas, with the original six that everybody got to know,” guitarist Richard Williams said. “There were a few different bands with some of the same members, but they mutated into something else all the time. This is the official version.”
As part of a three-show swing into his home state, Kansas performs Saturday night at Park City Arena as part of its tour, dubbed “Another Fork in the Road.”
Making the setlist, Williams said, the band had a concerted effort to represent all five decades of its existence.
“It gave us an opportunity to dust off a few things we haven’t played in almost 50 years,” he said from a tour stop in Thousand Oaks, Calif.
A gallery on Kansas’ website shows eight current members of Kansas and 10 former bandmates.
With drummer/band manager Phil Ehart on the mend after arm rehabilitation during 2022-23 and a heart attack earlier this year, Williams is the lone member of the original core group.
“He’s recovered extremely well, but until he gets the all-clear, he’s gonna stay” off the road, Williams said.
Ehart was replaced by longtime drum tech Eric Holmquist in March, and 40-year veteran lead singer/bassist Billy Greer left last month, succeeded by Dan McGowan.
“We’ve known him since he was like 12 years old,” Williams said. “He was totally ready to jump in and take over, so we never really missed a beat.”
Williams said the pandemic caused Kansas to think about a backup plan.
“We’ve been training people in the wings. COVID caused that,” he said. “You never know when somebody’s gonna get sick and we didn’t want to take the food out of 16 families’ mouths – with road crew, etcetera – by canceling. We have backups for everybody, kind of an insurance policy.”
The golden anniversary prompted Williams to think back at the origins of the Topeka-based band.
Prompted by the 1964 appearance of The Beatles on “The Ed Sullivan Show,” Williams had to have a guitar. He took a couple of lessons at a local music store, where he met a bass player who knew of an organ player. They needed a drummer, and that’s how they found Ehart, Williams said.
Their first band, The Pats, were formed in high school. They met bass player Dave Hope in a bowling alley, after he got kicked of school for smoking and had left the military academy.
Meanwhile, Kerry Livgren was lead singer with another band in town, and eventually their paths crossed.
“We were playing the Top 40 music of the day, playing proms. We get a little older, we’re playing bars,” Williams recalled. “A lot of people thought the coveted gig was the Holiday Inn lounge, where you didn’t have to move your equipment. But that didn’t appeal to us.”
Venues in northeast Kansas only wanted a band that could play covers of current hits, “but we didn’t really want to,” he added.
“I think what drove the original six of us to play together was that we had had enough of that and we wanted to start playing our own material, whatever that was going to be,” he said. “We started rewriting a lot of the songs we were forced to play, and we were just being ourselves.
“A lot of our peers fell to the pressure of getting the day job,” he said. “The original six of us were like the last men standing of our peer group that wanted to do this.”
Williams called getting a deal with famed rock producer Don Kirshner “pure luck.”
“We made a tape and we had six copies. One of them winded up on Kirshner’s desk among millions of others and he happened to hear it,” he said. “They didn’t even know there was music on both sides of the tape, they just listened to one side. They liked it enough to give us a call, and they sent someone out to see us.
“They rolled the dice with us and the rest,” he said, slipping into a smooth DJ voice, “is rock ‘n’ roll history.”
The song that caught their attention, “Can I Tell You,” was noticeable for its mix of violin, vocals and harmonies, Williams was told.
“Underneath that we were a solid rock band,” he said. “Kirshner thought there might be something to it.”
Kansas’ first three albums – its 1974 debut, 1975’s “Song for America” and “Masque” – “sort of held their own, but they were kind of like bleeding money,” Williams said.
“Then ‘Leftoverture’ came and exploded and suddenly Don was a genius,” he said of the 1976 album, which included the smash “Carry On Wayward Son” and sold more than 5 million copies.
“Leftoverture” paved the way for Kansas’ classic rock including “Dust in the Wind,” “Point of Know Return” and “Play the Game Tonight.”
Asked when he felt like Kansas had “made it” in the music industry, Williams said it was at the 30-year mark for the band.
“All of a sudden, we realized this is what we do, travel around the country and the world and play guitar. Again, the 40th, it was absolutely the same feeling. “Now it’s the 50th, and it’s ‘nothing new here.’”
While acts with less than a half-century in the books take off into farewell tours, Williams said that isn’t in mind for Kansas.
“We don’t talk farewell tours. Phil and I are the owners of the touring entity now, and we don’t talk about the end. We talk about next year and next year we’ve got big plans,” he said. “What’s beyond 2025 isn’t known. As long as there’s a crowd out there to play for, and the ability to get out of the house and do it, we’ll be there.”
KANSAS
When: 7:30 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 5
Where: Park City Arena
Tickets: $56-$125, from ticketmaster.com or the arena box office
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