When Steve Miller pulls his bus onto the Pima County Fairgrounds this weekend for KLPXfest, he and his band should be full of vim and vigor. It will be just the third concert in Miller's grueling 50-city worldwide tour.
The 66-year-old guitarist is playing stadiums, fairgrounds, festivals, arenas and baseball parks throughout the country and Europe, singing all those great songs that made his blues-rock band a multiplatinum sensation in the 1970s and '80s.
The Steve Miller Band will headline Sunday's classic-rock extravaganza. Also on the bill: .38 Special, Ratt, Starship with Mickey Thomas and The Edgar Winter Group. Peter Frampton withdrew from the lineup last week after he lost most of his equipment in the Nashville floods early this month.
The music represents a swath of styles, from glam rock delivered by a band of pretty boys in impossibly skinny jeans with fluffy blown-dried-hair to edgy Southern rock performed by a band of bearded garage-rockers with scruffy hair and no real concern with the day's fashions.
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The artists are all a little more subdued, as you might expect from a bunch of middle-aged men, and their hair is a bit thinner. But we're betting they can still do justice to the hits that pay their bills and take us blissfully back.
Here's our iPod playlist of greatest hits from the KLPXfest lineup, in shuffle mode:
"Fly Like An Eagle" (The Steve Miller Band) - That opening guitar riff and psychedelic-rock interlude is killer, even now, 33 years after it was released in 1977 and soared to No. 2 on Billboard's Hot 100 chart.
"Free Ride" (Edgar Winter Group) - This cut off the 1972 album "They Only Come Out at Night" is one of the pale, white-haired guitarist's most-enduring singles.
"Rockin' Into the Night" (.38 Special) - The Southern rockers opened 1980 with the driving anthem.
"Abracadabra" (The Steve Miller Band) - This undeniable dose of rock 'n' roll magic went all the way to No. 1 in 1982.
"Hold On Loosely" (.38 Special) - Released on the Southern rockers' 1981 album "Wild-Eyed Southern Boys," it quickly defined their radio-friendly sound.
"We Built This City" (Starship with Mickey Thomas) - It's a cliché, we know, but this 1985 song just sums up the whole 1980s experience for us. Thomas is the lone holdout of the old Jefferson Starship, whose founding vocalist Paul Kantner is touring with a reincarnation of Jefferson Starship.
"The Joker" (The Steve Miller Band) - Another ace in the hole and another No. 1 hit, from 1973, that we unabashedly love.
"Nothing's Gonna Stop Us Now" (Starship with Mickey Thomas) - Hey, bet you can't name the 1987 flick that contained this sappy gem. Give up? "Mannequin."
"Rockin' Me" (The Steve Miller Band) - Oh, yes, this one from 1976 will get the masses hyped on Sunday.
"Round and Round" (Ratt) - The California glam rockers and this 1984 guitar-driven zinger are getting a second life courtesy of Guitar Hero.
"Take the Money and Run" (The Steve Miller Band) - We're suckers for the Bonnie and Clyde storyline, but it's the chorus of whoa-whoa-whoas and quick-burst clapping that really got us going when it was released in 1976 and keeps us going today.
"Frankenstein" (Edgar Winter Group) - An instrumental epic from the same album that spawned "Free Ride." This 1973 acid-rock treasure speaks volumes to fans of a certain age.
"Lay it Down" (Ratt) - This blistering rock ballad set us up for a steamy summer in 1985.
"Jet Airliner" (The Steve Miller Band) - Admit it, you thought he was saying "big ol' Jed had a light on" or some variation thereof.
If you go
• What: KLPX Fest 2010, featuring the Steve Miller Band, .38 Special, Ratt, Starship with Mickey Thomas and the Edgar Winter Group.
• When: Gates open at noon Sunday; first act goes on stage at 1 p.m.
• Where: Pima County Fairgrounds, 11300 S. Houghton Road.
• Tickets: $35 in advance at all Catalina Mart locations; $45 at the gate.
• Details: www.klpx.com.
