http://www.triumphmusic.com/

Bands seem to go through this. Triumph came to Tulsa a week or so ago. Didn’t go ONLY because Rik Emmett’s not touring with them (due to, you guessed it, bad blood). These bands’ dysfunctions are sometimes the precise tensions that makes them so great.

I highly recommend the three albums that came before that (all with Bickler on vocals) Survivor, Premonition, and Caught In The Game…..I was SO happy when they put those albums out on CD…

Also, since you dig the Jamison years, you’d probably like this cheapie live album…

http://snipurl.com/333ff [www_amazon_com]

Sourced from a live video they put out in the 80s, from the Vital Signs tour.

I saw them (with Night Ranger) at the beginning of the month….former MSG singer Robin McCauley is the lead singer these days, and as much as I was not looking forward to seeing them with him, he actually did a great job.

Also, Peterik and Jamison are working on an album that will be out this fall….can’t WAIT for that!

Here is my intended comment, in full:

Keyboards are certainly an important part of the Night Ranger sound…you named a lot of my favorites, and I’ll add Sentimental Street to your list, as well. My point was, they’ve never had a keyboard player in that slot with half the charisma exhibited by Watson, Gillis, Blades, and now Hoekstra. While they are certainly key to the Night Ranger sound, my eyes are all over the madmen Night Ranger guitar players that are all over the stage live, with the signature dueling guitars that you allude to in Drama Queen.

Side note: liner notes are one thing that I certainly miss about the digital experience. I’ve been looking forward to the physical release of the Night Ranger for a while now, to find out the breakdown of lead vocal credits. I still need to get my physical copy to see the official credits, but Kelly Keagy sings a TON of the leads on this album - to the point that you would think that Jack Blades didn’t write much on this album, but in fact, he wrote at least a couple that Kelly takes the lead vocal on. I bring that up, because Kelly sings Drama Queen, since you were wondering…

Album wise, I really liked Seven - I’ve been meaning to put it on my Ipod for a while, in fact….love Peace Sign, and Mother Mayhem, in particular.

Are you a Survivor fan?

How can you say keyboard in NR weren’t a heavy influence with songs like Sister Christian, Four In The Morning, Rumors in the Air and heck the keys in Don’t Tell Me You Love Me are all significant? The acoustic version of Don’t Tell Me on Hole In The Sun is noticeably missing the wax/wane keys. I guess the guitarists could play the keys with synths to try and make up for some parts, but a good keyboard player is definitely not easily replaced. If Night Ranger never had had keyboards they would have been a different band. Not saying worse or better, but definitely a different band.

A STATEMENT FROM NIGHT RANGER:
What follows is a statement from Night Ranger in response to a message from former guitarist Jeff Watson posted on a Night Ranger Message Board yesterday:

“We are shocked and saddened to learn of Jeff Watson’s comments regarding his departure from Night Ranger. There are four sides to this story our three are the same; only Jeff’s is different.
While we don’t want to get into details at this point in time, we are all truly sorry that our significant and continuing differences with Jeff could not be worked out. Still, we wish Jeff nothing but success in all of his future endeavors and are grateful for his positive contributions in the past.”
- Jack Blades (bass/vocals), Brad Gillis (guitars/vocals), Kelly Keagy (drums/vocals).