Alex Dale

Nov 11, 20212 min read

Geoff Tate and Kurt Deimer at Arcada Theatre, St. Charles Illinois 11-11-21

Updated: Aug 13, 2022

Back at one of my favorite venues, the Arcada Theatre, for another great rock show, Geoff Tate Empire 30th Anniversary Tour with special guest Kurt Deimer opening. Always such an enthusiastic crowd at the Arcada, even on a chilly Thursday night!

Not gonna lie I had never heard of the opening band Kurt Deimer who is currently touring with Geoff Tate. But I have seen Bon Jovi’s current guitarist Phil X before and was rather surprised to see him onstage! Although his presence was a bit theatrical his songs were rather “real”, about not telling people how to be. They also did a cover which they definitely put their own twist on! Which is good, if we wanted the original we’d go see them, right?

Kurt Deimer Band:

Singer- Kurt Deimer

Guitarist- Phil X

Guitarist- Michale Vassos

Bassist- Cristian Sturba

Drummer- Dango

I guess I should start by saying this was my first time seeing Geoff Tate “Solo”, I’ve seen him with Avantasia and Queensryche but not with his own band. That being said, it was truly a great show! They played ‘Rage For Order’ and Empire in their entirety along with two encores (3 songs)! The band had a ton of energy and was tight, even when Kieran Robertson had to play his solo in “Resistance” on Alex Hart’s guitar because someone tripped over/unplugged his cables! I had heard that Geoff Tate can be rather dramatic, so wasn’t sure what to expect from his performance. Although he did get up close and personal for some interaction shots during the song “Gonna Get Close To You” of course, the rest of his performance more real and less theatrical than I thought it might be. Which is a good thing in my book! I loved the fan story he talked about! In short, it started off with him mentioning how one of his pet peeve’s is, as a song writer you spend hours, days even weeks picking just the right words to convey a message and then someone botches it. Then he goes into the story about being at the grocery store and a fan comes up to him and tells Geoff what a huge impact this song had on his life. Geoff was actually really moved by the story but didn’t recall which song the fan was referring to, so he asked and the fan reply’s “Silence In Tennessee”. For anyone who doesn’t know the fan was incorrectly referring to Queensryche’s biggest hit “Silent Lucidity”, which peaked at #9 on the Billboard Hot 100 and #1 on the Billboard Rock Album Tracks chart! All in all it was a great night of love music and story telling!