Chicago and Styx keep their sounds alive on the ‘Windy Cities’ tour

Touring as an original member of a classic rock band is like winning a war of attrition. It can be a mixed blessing being able enough to perform at a high-level when you’re on the precipice of 80 — as many still-touring Rock & Roll Hall of Famers are — especially as former band mates have retired or died.

It’s something Lee Loughnane, a founding member of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame group Chicago, knows well. When Loughnane announced in April that singer/songwriter Robert Lamm had retired from touring due to health issues, Loughnane — who turns 80 in October — became the last original member of Chicago to remain on the touring circuit.

“I would love for everybody to still be around,” he says, “but that’s not the way life works.”

Last month, Walter Parazaider — who stood by Loughnane’s side for many years in Chicago’s vaunted horn section — died following complications from Alzheimer’s disease, though he had retired from the road years earlier. Original singer and guitarist Terry Kath died in 1978 in a firearm accident.

Perhaps Chicago’s most famous member, Peter Cetera — who sang lead on songs like “Baby, What a Big Surprise” and “Hard Habit to Break” — quit in 1985. Loughnane claims there were efforts to bring him back, but, he says, “that fell through a long time ago.”

The band originally formed in 1968, when it was known as The Big Thing, a precursor to its second name, The Chicago Transit Authority. To put that in some perspective, Season 6 “American Idol” contestant Rudy Cardenas — who joined the band last month to sing the Cetera songs — was born in 1978.

Loughnane — known for his soaring trumpet lines on Chicago classics like “25 or 6 to 4” and “Does Anybody Really Know What Time It Is?” — now lives in Sedona, Arizona, but he grew up in Elmwood Park, where Lee Loughnane Way was dedicated in his honor in 2012. Today, his nephew owns the house where Loughnane was raised, while his sister still lives about a half-block away.

“You would never even in your wildest dreams that, first of all, you’d be able to do this for a living and then have something remembered after you with your name on it,” he says.

On Saturday, Aug. 1, Loughnane returns to the area with Chicago to co-headline Rosemont’s Allstate Arena with fellow Windy City natives Styx as part of the aptly named “Windy Cities” tour.

“I know of (Styx’s) music,” Loughnane says, “but I think if you ask them, they’ll probably give you a similar answer. They’ve been busy working rather than listening to what anybody else is doing.”

That’s not entirely true. Tommy Shaw, singer and guitarist for Styx, says he has been rockin’ Chicago since the release of their 1969 debut, when Shaw was 15 years old. “When Chicago Transit Authority came out,” Shaw says. “it changed my world.”

Although Shaw isn’t technically an original member of Styx, he joined the band in 1976, just in time for the band’s golden era. He says it “took a while” to stop feeling like the new guy and was absent from the band for a few years during Styx’s first of several reunions, beginning in 1990. Even though fellow singer/guitarist James “J.Y.” Young has been in the band from the beginning, Shaw is the de facto leader of the band. Original bassist Chuck Panozzo joins the band on stage for some songs; his brother and former Styx drummer John Panozzo died 30 years ago, and original singer and keyboardist Dennis DeYoung left the band in 1999.

Most classic-rock bands have stopped recording new material, either because the return on investment isn’t there or because hard-wired fans simply want to hear the hits. Chicago has released just one album of original material since 2014 and rarely performs anything recorded within the past four decades.

For Loughnane, the reason is simple. “We try to keep people in their seats interested in what we’re doing. The legacy material that we’ve put together works every night.”

Styx takes a different approach. While no show is complete without arena-rock staples like “Come Sail Away,” “The Grand Illusion” and Shaw’s signature “Renegade,” the band continues to write, record and perform new material. Their “Windy Cities” tour set list includes songs from both 2025’s “Circling From Above” and 2021’s “Crash of the Crown.”

“We’re sentient beings and our brains are still working,” Shaw says. “So, we don’t want to just lean on the past.

“Although,” he adds, “we have a pretty awesome past.”

• Blair R. Fischer is a freelance writer.

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Chicago & Styx: The Windy Cities Tour

When: 7 p.m. Saturday, Aug. 1

Where: Allstate Arena, 6920 N. Mannheim Road, Rosemont

Tickets: Start at $145 at rosemont.com