What's Your Price For Flight? A Few Words On Night Ranger

The affable DJ Murphy made a public comment about finding an elusive Night Ranger album, stating that he found a copy of the band’s Dawn Patrol album, It was an admission that prompted some good-natured ribbing from yours truly because-let’s be honest-there isn’t a lot of demand for Night Ranger albums beyond the obligatory greatest hits offering.

But Murph is an unabashed collector, you see, shunning the digital realm even when a few clicks would provide him the entire Night Ranger catalog in a matter of moments, and he could do so without paying a dime.

Murph is loyal too, he will buy duplicate copies of a title if the artist means a lot to him and he will get in great detail of manufacturing information on catalog numbers and quirky subtleties of the audio quantities of certain disc pressing plants.

It’s fascinating, an I have some of his research tools to check on a few suspicions that I’ve had in my own collection.

Anyway, the Night Ranger album in question would probably cost a bit of scratch, I guess, because he found an German import version of Dawn Patrol. To me, that in itself is prime material for some good natured ribbing. I mean, who pays big time prices for a Night Ranger album, for christsakes?

I hinted at deep cut Dawn Patrol track and Murph called me out-suggesting that maybe there’s a history with me and Night Ranger.

There is.

At a different point in my life, I worked for a radio station that sponsored a week-long music event where we’d book a bunch of fair-circuit bands. On one particular night, Night Ranger was booked and yours truly was just the man to introduce them to the audience.

This was well after the band had passed their prime, “prime” being the day they released the song “Sister Christian.” The band had a platinum and another gold album after that release-but it wasn’t too long until they found themselves looking for work at county fairs and small town festivals where the stage was right across from the Tiltawhirl.

It was raining that night, with a steady pour that meant you would be soaked within seconds without a poncho. Under a thousand people showed up, including a few people from my old high school. I remember this in particular as this same person who used to refer to Night Ranger as “Night Scrounger” a few years earlier when the band’s tepid, arena rock delivery was all over Midwestern radio.

I came into their backstage area-an air conditioned trailer that held some folding chairs, a plastic folding table that held an ice-filled bucket full of beverages and the usual deli meat and cheese assortment, a stuffed couch and an area in back to shower and change.

Night Ranger lived a short life in my record collection, a victim of falling to changing tastes and a hype that painted the band more aggressively then they actually were. Understand, this was the band that featured a guitarist who turned down Ozzy-at least that was the talk on the street. Nobody turns down Ozzy, unless they have a shit hot band themselves, which is what prompted me to consider Dawn Patrol.

It reminded me of Loverboy, a lite arena rock band that chicks in my town seemed to like. And while Night Ranger had a twin-guitar attack, they didn’t need it. It was very clear with Dawn Patrol that the band was geared towards the mainstream. And until they achieved the commercial success that they wanted, they’d have to make due as a high-energy touring band, one that had plenty of gimmicks for their live set.

I sold Dawn Patrol just as quickly as I was swayed by its false promise.

So to suggest that I was in awe of their presence would not be factual. The backstage meeting was just another gig for me as it was Night Ranger, and for that, we had mutual respect.

At this point, is was only Kelly Keagy and Brad Gillis-which made my question of “So, what was Ozzy really like, Brad?” quasi-relevant. With such an insensitive question and such obvious ambivalence towards the band, Gillis could have answered in such half measures without any damage to him or the diminishing spotlight of his career.

Let’s be clear, he was getting to perform in a rainstorm in front of less than 500 people next to a smelly river in a town that held less than any number of one of their arena shows from their 80’s heyday.

But Gillis answered my question. With honesty and completeness, he spoke candidly at how intimidating it was to be the first guitarist since Randy Rhodes died that shared the stage with Ozzy. He explained that he left Night Ranger to play with Ozzy, and his intention was to always return to them instead of becoming the guy that would forever be compared to Rhodes if he stayed. He refused to speak harshly against Sharon, even after so gentle prodding from yours truly. He was a gentleman just doing a gig before the real gig was to take place.

And Keagy was too, taking the fall from the charts with humble character, hinting that he had no real illusions that they’d ever manage to crawl back up the charts again. Instead, Night Ranger was the only gig he had-the same one which began under the name Rubicon several years before they changed the name to Night Ranger. His partner, Jack Blades, was riding high with Damn Yankees-the “supergroup” with him, the dude from Styx, and Ted Nugent. He even filled everyone in on the whereabouts of their keyboard player-Alan “Fitz” Fitzgerald-who was playing keyboards for Van Halen, albeit from behind the stage.

Why kick a band when they’re down? And more to the point, how can the afternoon-drive guy from a small-town radio station have the right to poke fun of anyone who’s doing what they love?

The fact is that Night Ranger probably made more on that rainy night that I did that entire month. And unlike me, they stuck with their chosen profession, continuing under a sense of obligation, knowing that there’s someone somewhere who’s ready to hear “Sister Christian” in the flesh.

And when I grabbed the microphone on the stage, I thanked the show’s sponsors with phony enthusiasm. But when I asked the crowd to not “let the rain wash away your enthusiasm, let’s give a warm, river cities welcome to Night Ranger!” I meant it.