The Night Stalker (1972) + The Night Strangler (1973)

27-song set. Tour premiere of “Seeds”; “Lucky Town” and “I’m On Fire” return to the set. Four songs from 2020’s Letter To You: “Ghosts,” “Letter to You,” “Last Man Standing” and “I’ll See You In My Dreams.” “Last Man Standing” features a new arrangement. “I’ll See You In My Dreams” is performed solo acoustic to end the show. One song from 2022’s Only the Strong Survive: “Nightshift” (written by Franne Golde, Dennis Lambert and Walter Orange, popularized by The Commodores). Concert stalwarts like “Because The Night,” “Dancing in the Dark,” and “Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out” are performed in tighter, shorter versions. “Thunder Road” is the main-set close.

This album has had over three decades to make an impact, and it says something for its staying power that, in the face of more recent, more generously programmed, and better mastered compilations of the duo's work, it remains one of the most popular parts of the Simon & Garfunkel catalog…

This superb compilation, often called "the red album," brings together the majority of the Beatles' hits from the early to mid '60s. Consequently, it plays like an overview of the some of the most popular and indelible rock songs of all time. From the "yeah, yeah, yeah"'s of "She Loves You" through the amped-up giddiness of "I Want to Hold Your Hand," the minor-key melodicism of "And I Love Her," and on to the chiming power pop of "Eight Days a Week" and the tweaky feedback of "I Feel Fine," these are the songs that turned the entire Western world on its ear…

Following Paul Rodgers' unsuccessful project titled Peace and Andy Fraser's ill-fated Toby, Free rebuilt themselves and released Free at Last in the summer of 1972. The band went right back to what they knew best, with Rodgers baring his blues-rock soul to Kossof's moody electric guitar. Tracks like "Sail On," "Soldier Boy," and "Travelling Man" come out on top as some of the band's most emotive material, proving that their breakup in 1971 had no real effect on their chemistry. "Little Bit of Love" was released as a single in the U.K., peaking at number 13, while the album itself broke the Top Ten there, stalling at number 69 in the U.S. The band's mixture of laid-back blues and gritty, bare-boned rock & roll is as poignant and as expressive as it was on Tons of Sobs or Fire and Water, even though Paul Kossof's problems with drugs were beginning to be more and more evident…

This album has had over three decades to make an impact, and it says something for its staying power that, in the face of more recent, more generously programmed, and better mastered compilations of the duo's work, it remains one of the most popular parts of the Simon & Garfunkel catalog – which doesn't mean it isn't fraught with frustrations for anyone buying it. Its very existence is something of a fluke – in the spring of 1972, the five original Simon & Garfunkel albums, Wednesday Morning, 3 AM, Sounds of Silence, Parsley, Sage, Rosemary & Thyme, Bookends and Bridge Over Troubled Water, were still selling almost as well as they had in the 1960s; indeed, Bridge Over Troubled Water had carved out a seemingly permanent place for itself on the charts for years; and between the continued radio play of the duo's biggest hits, and the inevitable discovery of their catalog by successive new waves of junior high and high school students, those five LPs stood among the most profitable parts of the Columbia Records back catalog, rivaling Bob Dylan's much larger library in sheer numbers.

Shadrack Chameleon was not so much a band as it was a collective of musicians from a couple popular late-'60s Iowa rock bands. Steve Fox and Randy Berka were close friends growing up in Fort Dodge, Iowa in the early '60s where they were inspired to pick up guitars after hearing the Beatles. Fox's family moved to Illinois in 1964 but returned three years later to Humboldt, near Fort Dodge. By this time, Berka had started a band with organist Jon Porter, drummer Tom Northup, and guitarist John Callahan, which evolved into Lazy River. With Artie Strutzenberg taking over drum chores from Northup and with the addition of Mark Flanagan on bass, Lazy River became a popular band, playing gigs throughout the region…

This album has had over three decades to make an impact, and it says something for its staying power that, in the face of more recent, more generously programmed, and better mastered compilations of the duo's work, it remains one of the most popular parts of the Simon & Garfunkel catalog – which doesn't mean it isn't fraught with frustrations for anyone buying it…