Styx’s Rosemont Homecoming Put a Former Fan Behind the Drums

When Styx recorded Return to Paradise at Rosemont Horizon on September 21, 1996, drummer Todd Sucherman had a particularly good reason to recognize the room. He had watched Styx there as a fan in March 1981.

Fifteen years later, he was onstage. The reunion tour brought Tommy Shaw back into the lineup, while Sucherman stepped in for the ailing John Panozzo. His first live show with Styx had come that May in Cedar Rapids; by September, the band was recording its home-area arena date for an album and concert video.

The building is now Allstate Arena. For Sucherman, its place in the story is unusually direct: the same arena held both the teenage concertgoer and the musician who eventually got the job.

Explore the Allstate Arena venue guide.

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