Not sure I really do but I do know that the band who asked the question in song, formerly known as the Chicago Transit Authority, now just Chicago, played Sunday night at Verizon Theatre.

Although I may not know what time it is here are some things I do know….

Chicago put on a terrific show, going through their long musical career playing hit after hit all night long. They played all my favorites and closed on… you guessed it… 25 or 6 to 4!!

I also know that Robert Lamm, one of the four original members, told the audience early on that they had a nice long show designed for us. By the end of the evening, over two hours later, I can confirm that he was not kidding AND it went by briskly!

After using the first three songs of their set to take photographs of Chicago’s performance (see Photo Gallery) I closed my camera bag, sat in the back of the theatre, kicked up my feet and enjoyed the show.

After every song I thought of all the many people not in attendance who would have shared the joy of what I was experiencing.   The band was so fired up and gave their all to an appreciative but not very vocal crowd. There were nine musicians on stage and as I continued to watch I noticed that each performer was putting it all out there as if they were the only one.  I like that type of team effort as it caused me to stay very focused on the stage and take in all the music and all the musicians.

The horn section blew me away… get it? These guys are world class musicians, all founding members of the group, who can create beautiful sounds…and they did, ALL NIGHT LONG. The trombonist, James Pankow never stopped moving. He was always trying to catch the eye of someone in the audience (almost pointing at them, one at a time, saying, look and listen to me ).   Fun stuff!

Besides the music being fantastic the light show was also amazing.  Being a photographer (vs writer) I pay a lot of attention to stage lighting and theirs was second to none!

If there was a low light of the evening it was when the band plugged their upcoming Christmas album. I don’t have anything against Christmas, or Christmas albums but hard to get my arms around that season when it’s 103 degrees outside and it’s in the middle of summer. Chicago, I forgive you for the long  ‘infomercial’ , but only because you really kicked butt the rest of Sunday night.

I saw this group back in the 70’s and thought they were really good then. Sunday night they were awesome and I am so glad to have experienced it,  and I hope you can tell I thoroughly enjoyed them. They have just gotten better with age. Just think how good they might  have been if they’d been named Houston!

So for all you Houston Chicago fans who just didn’t want to brave the elements on a Sunday night,  who were recovering  from a late Saturday night and maybe one too many drinks, thinking about having to go to work early  the next morning and fight the traffic….. wishing you were here!