TWO FOR THE SHOW

Five studio albums followed before Kansas released "Two For The Show" (1978), a double album that condenses their best compositions (or many of them...) performed live, at a time when the band was at its highest peak of popularity, packing venues across North America between 1977 and 1978, propelled by the essential mega-hits "Carry On Wayward Son" and "Dust in the Wind".

A superlative set list that is built from elaborate representative symphonic structures such as the vindicatory "Song for America" (excellent despite presenting a version that omits part of the instrumental section), the mythological "Icarus - Borne on the Wings of Steel", the epic "Journey for Mariabronn", the extended version of the experimental and dark "Magnus Opus", the Genesian "Miracles of Knowhere", or the tributary "Closet Chronicles", songs where the protagonism is mainly assumed by Kerry Livgren's keyboards and synthesizers in a fluid interaction with Robby Steinhard's violins and Steve Walsh's unwavering voice, interspersed with other more direct and energetic songs like the adventurous "Point of Know Return", the questioning "Paradox", the mid-tempo "Portairt (He Knew)", or the nightmarish "Mysteries and Mayhem".

Executed with a vitality that is often not fully captured in the studio, the songs flow with power and create significant space for the instrumental showcasing of the band's virtuoso members, such as Livgren's heartfelt piano on the delicate "Lonely Wind" and Phil Ehart's drum solo on the instrumental "The Spider", but above all in the extended and exacerbated guitar improvisations of the Livgren/Williams duo in the hard rocker "Child of Innocence", in the bluesy "Lonely Street", and in the boogie rock "Bring it Back", which also serves as the album's concluding piece.

"Two For The Show", whose cover was inspired by "The Charwoman", a cover published in April 1946 in the American magazine "The Saturday Evening Post", is the spirited and symbolic closing of Kansas' most glorious period, after which they would begin, with "Monolith", a closer approach to the sonorities of American AOR and at the same time move away from the progressive framework.

4.5 stars

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