With lights flashing, the starship landed in Martin, the band that is.
The concert was not supposed to begin until 9 p.m., but there was already a crowd gathered who had listened to the previous concert, The Peacemakers. As 9 p.m. approached, more people arrived.
Unless the word had spread quickly, most of the crowd was probably expecting to attend a concert by a group called Survivor. However, Survivor had to cancel.
David Belote, Assistant Vice Chancellor, came onto the stage prior to the beginning of the concert to inform the crowd of what had happened, and to introduce Survivor’s replacement.
“Tonight we are honored to have Starship, featuring Mickey Thomas. On the schedule it said we were supposed to have Survivor perform and unfortunately they had an accident in their band. One of the band members was injured on stage and wasn’t able to perform. We found this out about 48 hours ago and I make this point to let you know that Starship really went out of their way to be here with us tonight and make this happen. We were very close to not having any entertainment tonight here, Friday night, at the festival. We are beholden to them for making it happen.”
No one knew how far they had to come to get here, but the very next day they were scheduled to play in Columbus, Ohio.
A few minutes after Belote’s speech, Starship made their appearance.
The lead singer, Mickey Thomas, said that the band is friends with Survivor. They were sad that the accident had happened and were happy to help.
Then they played several songs two of which were “Sara” and “Jane.”
Before playing another song, Thomas said that the next song, “Nothing’s Gonna Stop Us Now,” was one they had been offered to perform in 1987. The song is different now, but they decided to give it a shot.
After this, Thomas said that they were going to take the crowd back to the beginning of Starship’s career.
Over the course of the next few songs, Stephanie Calvert performed with Thomas, while John Roth played a few solos.
They played “Go Ask Alice,” “Miracles,” “Don’t You Need Somebody to Love,” “Fooled Around and Fell in Love” and several others. Once they finished playing those, Thomas said they were going to perform a song, “It’s not Enough,” which is from his favorite Starship album.
The last song was performed, or so the crowd thought. Once they finished performing, Thomas kissed his hand, almost a salute, and they left the stage.
The crowd cheered, shouted and begged for more.
Starship listened to the request of an encore when several of the band members returned to the stage. They began to play “We Built this City.” Before the song was complete, Thomas and the other performers returned to the stage to finish the song.
Upon the completion of the song, Thomas said good-bye to Martin, and ended the encore performance.
During any one of the songs, which totaled to be about 15, the crowd sang along and danced. The people who stood in front of the stage were able to reach out and touch hands with the singers. It seemed like Starship wanted a connection with the crowd.
Although Starship was not originally scheduled to perform, the crowd seemed to be pleased overall.
