What I Did on the 4th:

I got soaked out in the rain. But it was worth it. At Cooper River Park in Pennsauken NJ (about 15 minutes away from Philadelphia and 45 minutes away from my house) Kansas gave a free concert. It was American Progressive Rock at its finest. I'd say at least 50,000 people were there.

This is the 6th time I've seen them. And this tied as top performance (I saw them in 2001 in Atlantic City where they also gave a near flawless performance). Perhaps it was because of the "bigness" of the event, they knew they couldn't "phone in" the performance.

Kerry Livgren -- the writer of their hits -- no longer tours with them (because he doesn't have to -- $$). And Steve Walsh has irreparably lost some tone and range. Though, Walsh's voice still sounded top-notch for what he can now do. Their violin player -- David Ragsdale -- shreds (the sound guy could have brought him out a little more). And the band gave an extremely tight performance.

I've never seen them before with this many people or telecast on a huge screen. Though, most people there probably didn't know but two or three of their songs. They all knew the lyrics to the last two songs played (I'll let you guess what they were).

The show did not disappoint.