Kansas and Gentle Giant

Hey everyone. Just wanted to ask if everyone else noticed the connections between Kansas' breakthrough Leftoverture and Gentle Giant's alll-time classic Octopus. There are tons of musical ideas borrowed by Kansas from Octopus most notably parts of Raconteur Troubador. Also the name of the album fits the same type of paradigm. Kansas used the word leftover to signify that the tracks were supposedly leftovers and that word was spliced with the common musical term "overture". The idea behind Octopus was concieved by a wife of one of the band members i believe, mixed the word octo(as in eight of course) and opus, another common musical term. Just thought it would be cool to get that out there(even though i'm sure many of you fans of the group already know about it).

Well, Kerry Livgren was a enormous admirer of Gentle Giant. I read that in his autobio.

Never noticed before what you said, though!

hmmm... I was just listening to leftoverture yesterday, looks like im gonna have to get my hands on some GG now...

I highly recommend both bands. I have no idea whether my theory is right or not, just  wanted to hear some other views. Yeah actually i dont think they borrowed too heavily i just hear similarities in the tones of instruments, especially the hammond and the use of the violin. As for the actual similarities in composition, i think the opening of Miracles Out Of Nowhere is very similar the third section of Raconteur Troubador. The movement of the chords and the modulations seem to have a similar affect. I also hear similarities in Magnum Opus. But either way every progger should have both albums. Masterpieces indeed.