America at The Midland Theatre, Kansas City MO (2025-07-25)

“These aren’t oldies, this is Classic Rock!”

Singer-guitarist Dewey Bunnell of America, who is on their Encore Tour celebrating their 55th anniversary as a band, didn’t need to explain anything to the capacity crowd at the Midland Theatre in downtown Kansas City- they were too busy clapping and singing along to an evening of familiar and popular songs from the decades.

The Grammy Award-winning group is now on stage without co-leader Gerry Beckley, who retired from the road last year, but will still record and remain a member. Those 5000+ performances of Bunnell and Beckley all touring together were recently documented in “I Need You: 53 Years Of The Band America” and one of those timeless shows, Live From The Hollywood Bowl 1975, has also just been released via Sun Records.

So, if the question was, could Bunnell and his musical cohorts, still pull off a vibrant, fun and exciting America show without his musical other half, then the answer proved on this night, was an emphatic, “Yes!”.

We do have to note the smart intro video, played before the band took to the stage, which highlighted their biggest hits over the years, and how they’ve been used in popular media to become part of the culture itself.

From familiar film clips, to TV clips like “A Horse with No Name” used in the “Friends” episode where Joey gets his big break, to “Sister Golden Hair” in a “Sopranos” episode, and “You Can Do Magic” in a last season episode of “The Boys”, to a recent Kroger commercial that uses “Lonely People;” all reinforces that America’s music is everywhere, and ingrained into the zeitgeist (this kind of video is something all legacy bands should do, to further show their wide-reaching influence).

Following the video and short instrumental, the band hit the ground running with two big hits, “Tin Man” (once again in vogue with all the ‘Wicked’ film excitement) and “You Can Do Magic”, a cover that most think of, as a band original.

In addition to a vibrant Bunnell, we were happy to see the band remains a tight five-piece and did not bloat to two or three times their size in order to compensate when someone leaves, or needing the additional members to properly re-create the studio sound. All the band members were in good spirits and visibly smiling for most of the show, clearly having fun playing together.

Bassist Richard Campbell has been a steady member for over two decades and doubles as tour manager, drummer Ryland Steen actually came over from punk ska band Reel Big Fish over a decade ago, guitarist Steve Fekete played in Vertical Horizon and is well-known for his studio work, and fellow guitarist Andy Barr came back to the band following a 2016-18 stint, and still makes music with Amy Merrill under the future-facing moniker, Formerly Alien.

The set then followed a chronological path, starting with “I Need You” from their 1972 self-titled debut, and the band roared to life with the opening track from sophomore full-length Homecoming (also released in 1972- remember when great bands could be this prolific?), “Ventura Highway,” complete with sun-kissed California road footage.

Bunnell explained some of their workings with Beatles producer George Martin in the mid 70s before the band played the medley of “Cornwall Blank” and “Hollywood” and explained not having enough original material in the early days, so played a few covers of the day to fill their sets and re-created that era with faithful versions of Mamas and the Papas and Neil Young hits.

Former band member and co-founder Dan Peek (who left in 1977) was on Bunnell’s mind, with the fourteenth anniversary of his death the day before (he passed at age sixty in Farmington, MO, just south of St. Louis) and the band played the Peek-penned “Everyone I Meet Is From California” (ironic because no one but Bunnell at the time, had ever been to the sunshine state), in his honor.

The ninety-minute set also allowed for some soloing by all the band members within the songs themselves, and the interplay between the two guitarists and with Bunnell himself, was all joyful to watch and hear.

Following a poignant Vietnam-era “Sandman” (a song Bunnell wrote for the first album), the band ended their main set with 1975’s “Sister Golden Hair”, a chart-topping Beckley-penned hit from their fifth album, complete with dreamy hippie-era visuals.

The band quickly re-emerged for a single-song encore, with Bunnell prefacing it by saying, “Everybody wants to hear this song, for me to tell them what it means, sometimes they want to tell me what it means… anyway, here it is- ‘Muskrat Love’!”…and then they instead launched into their biggest hit, “A Horse With No Name”, as people laughed and sang along one last time.

Fifty-five years young, America continues to ‘still do magic’, remains musically strong, and Bunnell was right all along – their familiar hits aren’t ‘oldies’, they’re ‘classics’.

America at The Midland Theatre, Kansas City MO (2025-07-25)

America at The Midland Theatre, Kansas City MO (2025-07-25)

America at The Midland Theatre, Kansas City MO (2025-07-25)

America at The Midland Theatre, Kansas City MO (2025-07-25)

America at The Midland Theatre, Kansas City MO (2025-07-25)

America at The Midland Theatre, Kansas City MO (2025-07-25)

America at The Midland Theatre, Kansas City MO (2025-07-25)

America at The Midland Theatre, Kansas City MO (2025-07-25)

America at The Midland Theatre, Kansas City MO (2025-07-25)

America at The Midland Theatre, Kansas City MO (2025-07-25)

America at The Midland Theatre, Kansas City MO (2025-07-25)

America at The Midland Theatre, Kansas City MO (2025-07-25)

America at The Midland Theatre, Kansas City MO (2025-07-25)

America at The Midland Theatre, Kansas City MO (2025-07-25)

America at The Midland Theatre, Kansas City MO (2025-07-25)