I’m not sure if many people will realize how special this weekend really was to me. Isn’t that the guy from Styx, the one you’ve seen about 20 times? they’d say. Yes, but this wasn’t a Styx show or anything else I’d experienced before. During my college years I’d missed a few scattered opportunities to travel to the Great White North (aka Canada) to see this musician who I was so fond of perform in his element. Now that I’m in the working world, The Return of the Strange Animal 2-night extravaganza couldn’t have come at a better time. Finally, after about 10 years of waiting, I was finally going to get to see Gowan perform his own songs live in Canada!

Not only that, but his band was going to be brimming with talent. He would be joined by his brother Terry Gowan (original Gowan bassist), Peter Nunn (original Gowan keyboardist), Todd Sucherman (drummer from Styx), Taylor Mills (backup vocalist for Brian Wilson), and guitarist Danny J. I was beyond excited about seeing this band in action!

I stayed with my Uncle Andy that weekend in Buffalo, NY, which was roughly a 30 minute drive from Niagara Falls without traffic. However, traffic was certainly an issue. My uncle was kind enough to taxi me to and from this show (as well as the show following night), and I will be forever grateful for that and his and my aunt’s hospitality during my stay.

The plan for the evening was that I and any other Gowan fans who wished to join would be meeting by Tim Horton’s inside the Fallsview Casino at 7pm. Unfortunately, due to more traffic than anticipated, I didn’t get dropped off at the casino doors until closer to 7:15pm. The casino was quite fancy. It was a tall glass building with a huge, beautiful fountain just inside the lobby. I had a floor plan of the place, but decided to just ask an employee for directions to Tim Horton’s. When I arrived at the food court, I found 7 or so people already seated. Mj and Carol were the ones I immediately recognized. Norma-Lee and her fiance, Shane, also joined us a bit after I’d arrived.

We had a nice time visiting and moved toward the Avalon Theater around 8pm. Norma-Lee and Carol seemed concerned about the whereabouts of Janet, whose phone wasn’t working and had not yet shown up. I told them that even Janet herself had said she tends to be “right on time” for stuff, so while I hoped she was safe I was sure she was going to show up at any minute.

The mid-'80's are often viewed as sort of a black hole for rock and roll. It was an MTV world, with synth-pop dominating the charts and hair, teased and styled into pretty-boy perfection. It's hard to reflect on that period without cringing.

But for Larry Gowan it was time of rock 'n' roll glory, a time when he was known as the Strange Animal.

It was 25 years ago and Gowan had turned a bunch of demo tapes he had made in his parent's basement in Scarborough, Ont., into a multiplatinum-selling album that competed at the top of the charts with Bruce Springsteen's Born In The U.S.A. and Phil Collins' No Jacket Required. The album scored radio hits with four songs - A Criminal Mind, Cosmetics, Guerrilla Soldier and (You're a) Strange Animal.

The album was called Strange Animal and it was recorded in a stately English mansion, Tittenhurst Park, that was home to two Beatles. It was where John Lennon recorded Imagine and provided the backdrop for the Fab Four's last photo shoot in 1969.

When Gowan arrived in 1985 for five months of recording, Ringo Starr was living there.

He still marvels at the experience. "To go up to that house and get past the guard dogs and knock on the door and have Ringo open the door and say hello. Wow."

Gowan has gone on to do many things since. For the past 11 years, he's been the lead singer and keyboard player for the hugely successful prog-rock band Styx. He still performs more than 100 shows a year with them.

Yet his defining moment will always be 1985, the year of the Strange Animal.

"To this day, I can't walk out on the street without someone yelling out 'you've got a criminal mind,' or 'you're a strange animal,'" Gowan says in an interview from his Toronto home.

Although Styx is now Gowan's bread and butter, he couldn't let the 25th anniversary of Strange Animal go by without marking it in some way. He took some time off from Styx, found the original tapes in a New York vault and remastered the nine songs for a special anniversary package - Return Of The Strange Animal - recently released on the Linus Entertainment label.

He's also assembled some of his old bandmates from the mid-'80's (as well as Styx drummer Todd Zuckerman) to perform the album front to back at two concerts Friday and Saturday at the Avalon Theatre of Niagara Fallsview Casino. Both shows sold out quickly.

Gowan, 53, admits that a lot of bad music was made in the '80's.

"I'm usually one of the people dissing that period of music," he says. "There was some dreadful stuff in the '80's, but like any decade, there's always dreadful stuff. We were just more aware of it because it was all over the television, but there was great stuff as well and that's what has survived."

Gowan attributes the success of Strange Animal largely to the quality of the band he had working with him - David Rhodes on guitar, Jerry Marotta on drums and Tony Levin on bass. If the names are familiar, it's because they are the guys who have backed Peter Gabriel for most of the past 3o years.

It was at a Gabriel concert in Toronto where Strange Animal had its start, Gowan explains. He passed his demo tape to British producer David Tickle who was working as sound engineer for the Gabriel tour. Gowan told Tickle that musicians like the ones backing Gabriel on stage that night were what his songs needed to bring them to life. A few months later, he got a phone call. Tickle told him the guys from the Gabriel band liked the demo. He also mentioned that he had been hired to outfit a studio at this big house in England called Tittenhurst.

"The name seemed familiar to me," Gowan recalls about. "And then I said, 'Wait a minute is that the place where John made Imagine?'

"And he said, "Yeah, Ringo has moved in there now and he wants to get the home studio up and running again. So why don't we make a record at the same time?'

"And that's how it all very rapidly and remarkably came together. Yes, it was a real 'wow.'"

©2010 (Graham Rockingham, Hamilton Spectator)