Chicago has been around for more than 50 years and I, along with several other misguided reviewers, have donated five years to look at the band’s fantastic musical legacy week after week. Well, some of it was fantastic, some of it was just OK, and a little of it was God awful.
As we near the end with 1999’s Chicago XXVI: Live in Concert, the fascinating thing is each fan has clear opinions on songs in each category.
This concert recording is well played and it should be given the studio fixes typically employed by Chicago. Unfortunately, the set list is paint-by-the-numbers, adding little for the long-term fan and not much to pull in new ones. The three new studio tracks are equally inoffensive, with the Burt Bacharach/Tonio K song “If I Should Ever Lose You” the best of a half-hearted bunch.
Bill Champlin provides yet another powerful vocal. Jason Scheff’s support on the chorus seems like yet another attempt to recreate Chicago’s “Hard Habit to Break” / “Will You Still Love Me” magic but the song’s arrangement isn’t as strong. Tris Imboden and Keith Howland are given little to do, and I doubt producer Mervyn Warren even had Robert Lamm in the studio for keyboards or vocals.
Oh, the Chicago horns are here, but there’s just not much life in this song.
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