Lakes Jam organizers announced Thursday the band Styx will be the rock-n-roll headliner for the music festival in 2016.
Lakes Jam, an outdoor music festival that unites rock and country music fans, is scheduled June 23-25, 2016, at Brainerd International Raceway, located north of Brainerd and Baxter on Highway 371. National artists will perform on the main stage and area bands will perform on the secondary stage for the music festival.
On the Lakes Jam social media sites, organizers report they will announce the country headliner at 7:30 a.m. Friday.
Lakes Jam again promises three days, 15 bands and one big party and tickets go on sale Friday. Go online at www.lakesjam.com to purchase tickets.
Styx has six members: James "JY" Young and Tommy Shaw, both are on lead vocals and guitars; Chuck Panozzo on bass and vocals; Todd Sucherman, drums and percussion; Lawrence Gowan on lead vocals and keyboards; and Ricky Phillips, bass, guitars and vocals.
ADVERTISEMENT
According to Styx's website, the band has played more live dates since 1999 than all of its previous years on the road combined. Two Super Bowl appearances, Pollstar Box Office chart-topping tours with Def Leppard, Foreigner, Journey, Boston, REO Speedwagon and Bad Company; two more studio albums and no end in sight, the website stated.
Spawned from a suburban Chicago basement in the early '70s, Styx would eventually transform into the virtual arena rock prototype by the late '70s and early '80s, due to a fondness for big rockers and soaring power ballads.
Early on, Styx's music reflected such then-current prog rockers as Emerson, Lake and Palmer and the Moody Blues, as evidenced by such releases as 1972's self-titled debut, 1973's "Styx II," 1974's "The Serpent Is Rising" and 1975's "Man of Miracles." While the albums helped the group build a substantial following locally, Styx failed to break through to the mainstream, until a track originally from their second album, "Lady" started to get substantial airplay in late '74 on the Chicago radio station WLS-FM. The song was soon issued as a single nationwide, and quickly shot to number six on the singles chart, as "Styx II" was certified gold. By this time, however, the group had grown disenchanted with their record label, and opted to sign on with A&M for their fifth release overall, 1975's "Equinox," their former label would issue countless compilations over the years, culled from tracks off their early releases. On the eve of the tour in support of the album, original guitarist John Curulewski abruptly left the band, and was replaced by Tommy Shaw. Shaw proved to be the missing piece of the puzzle for Styx, as most of their subsequent releases throughout the late '70s earned at least platinum certification - 1976's "Crystal Ball," 1977's "The Grand Illusion," 1978's "Pieces of Eight" and 1979's "Cornerstone" - and spawned such hit singles and classic rock radio standards as "Come Sail Away," "Renegade," "Blue Collar Man" and "Fooling Yourself."
