Icarus - Borne on Wings of Steel (Live) by Kansas

During the '70s Kansas were widely considered the American version of English progressive-rock bands like Yes and King Crimson, and tracks like “Icarus” would explain why. Full of tempo changes and mythic references, this one packs a lot of information into six minutes. Never a single but a longtime live favorite, this song first appeared on Masque (one of two studio albums that Kansas released in 1975), but this version comes from the slightly later live album Two For the Show.

This version is notably even faster and trickier than the studio original. Kansas drummer and manager Phil Ehart, who talked to us after listening to those tapes, noted that “One of the main things we discovered is how fast we played everything. Some things are really fast, but that probably has to do with [our] youth, and playing in front of twenty thousand screaming people. The adrenaline starts flowing and tempos pick up a little bit - on some songs, a lot. That was kind of surprising. ‘Wow, we played fast!'"

Kansas frontman Steve Walsh briefly toured in the '80s as the keyboard player for Cheap Trick.

This is full-on prog rock, so be prepared to jump. Drummers can be ready for a lot of syncopation, and the bass part has a lot of tempo changes and triplet strums. The guitarist has two solos; the first being relatively easy but includes some serious post-solo noodling just when you expect a rest. In contrast, the second solo is tough all the way through! If that weren’t enough, the guitarist also gets to do some of the violin parts.

Still going strong; recently teamed with an orchestra for the 2009 DVD There’s Know Place Like Home.