Styx -  Florida Strawberry Fest. - Plant City, Florida - February 27, 2014

 

 While the rest of the Country has been suffering through a miserable winter, Florida is having its usual mild weather, a perfect place to see an outdoor concert in February! While the weather wasn't absolutely "perfect" in Plant City, it was far from what our friends up North have been dealing with. There was a light rain off and on and temps. in the 50's for the Styx concert on the opening night of the Florida Strawberry Festival. 

 

 Styx was one of the biggest selling bands of the late 70s and early 80s, and while there have been some line up changes since the bands heyday, they continue to sound amazing and put on a great live show. The band consists of vocalist/keyboardist Lawrence Gowan, Guitarist/vocalist Tommy Shaw, Guitarist/vocalist James "J.Y." Young, Drummer Todd Sucherman and Bassist Ricky Phillips. Long time Bassist and original member Chuck Panozzo does make the occasional appearance with the band but he was not in attendance at this show. 

 

 This was our first time attending this festival, we've always talked about going but just never got around to it. The Strawberry Festival is held in the same location every year, just a short ride from Tampa off I - 4. There is a large Midway with many rides, concerts every night which vary from Rock, Pop and Country and of course, LOTS of strawberries! We had no problems at all setting up a media pass for the Styx concert through the festivals Public Relations and Media Representative Lauren Der, she was a huge help as was everyone involved with the fest. They really know how to treat the media like royalty, we were able to park right in front of the media building with no charge, high speed internet was available to media representatives, pretty much any food or drinks that you could want were available there at no charge, and not just in the media building but also throughout the festival grounds. The only "issue" that I (Bill) had was that I was not able to photograph the band from close up or anything, there was no photo pit, only a walkway area in front of the stage that had to be kept clear. I had to take photos from further back in the crowd, plus it was raining so I was trying to keep my camera dry!

 

 The concert itself was great, Styx put on one of the best concerts that we have ever seen, the whole show ran like a well oiled machine. It was extremely hard to replace such a well known and iconic vocalist as Dennis DeYoung but Styx managed to pull it off by finding Lawrence Gowan, he's really a great frontman, full of boundless energy, running all over the stage, and he sounds amazing! We also love the Tommy Shaw vocal songs such as Fooling Yourself, Blue Collar Man and Renegade among others. We had a chance to meet Tommy Shaw's daughter Hannah, as she is very  involved in the charity started by Styx called

Rock to the Rescue. They had a booth set up where they were auctioning off a guitar, with the proceeds going to a local charity, 10 dollars gets you a raffle ticket and a cool guitar pick. The charity that they were helping here in the Tampa Area was Big Cat Rescue, a GREAT organization that runs a sanctuary for unwanted, abused, abandoned and orphaned big cats such as tigers, cougars, lions, bobcats etc. To find out more info. about this fantastic local charity click on the link here: Big Cat Rescue

All in all this was a great concert and festival, we will be sure to attend the Florida Strawberry Festival from here on out.

 

 We would like to thank Lauren Der, the media volunteers, Hannah Shaw, and Jeff Kremer from the Big Cat Sanctuary for all your help.

 

The full setlist was as follows:

 

The Grand Illusion, Too Much Time on My Hands, Fooling Yourself (The Angry Young Man), Lady, Light Up, Miss America, Man in the Wilderness, I'm O.K., Crystal Ball, Blue Collar Man (Long Nights), Lawrence Gowan Solo: Sweet Dreams, Strawberry Fields Forever, Live and Let Die, Fat Bottom Girls, Another Brick in The Wall (Part 2) Come Sail Away, Rockin' The Paradise, Renegade