Looking at this thread all these years later for some inspiration on an upcoming project, I just recently saw a couple of interviews. Tommy and especially JY still carry that grudge to this day! As for DeYoung? He says his bags are packed and he's ready to hit the road with them, if he'd only get the call; he says he'd like to go out one more time on a tour as a thank-you for the fans who supported the group for all these years, and then he'd let them go on.
With so many other bands having reconciled years or decades after a breakup, the fact that Tommy and particularly JY are still harboring that hatred just makes them look childish and petty. I don't know how Chuck's health is holding out, but even a limited number of gigs with the four remaining members would be something to witness.
Yeah, I don't know how Shaw and JY can still harbor a grudge after all these years working wholly apart from Dennis. You'd think all that time apart might have at least softened them slightly, if not made them nostalgic enough to be open to a one-off reunion show, especially for the sake of the fans. (In contrast, there's clearly little, if any, resentment on Dennis' end. Every interview I read or see with him, he's had nothing but nice things to say about Shaw's contributions to the group during their time together.)
At one point, I believe the band scrubbed DeYoung's name from their website altogether, though not without a great deal of flak for having done so. Today, DeYoung's name shows up exactly once on their site - a passing mention on the band's bio page that the band apparently couldn't even bring itself to include without including a quote from JY that takes a jab at him at the end.
It's especially distasteful that they would downplay his role in the history of the band when you consider that Shaw didn't join until 1976 and that even JY was technically the last of the original five Styx members to join (Dennis and the two Panozzos having played together as The Trade Winds - then TW4 - for eight or nine years at that point, and Curulewski having joined towards the end of the '60s to replace Tom Nardini), so Styx arguably likely would have never existed in the first place without Dennis.
But it also seems to me that Shaw and JY may possibly be resisting such a reunion in part because they seem to place so much emphasis - a little
too much, if you ask me - on their "rock cred" and are worried that agreeing to a one-off reunion with Dennis would just make them look less than hip. Now, mind you, this isn't a band that - in its post-DeYoung incarnation, anyway - has designed its set lists in a way that makes sure they're including all the hits (of the band's eighteen Top 40 hits, they leave out nine of them in any given show, these days, including four Top Ten smashes). But it says a lot about what Shaw's and JY's true concerns are that they've pretty much cast aside every hit ballad they ever had from their live repertoire, with the exception of "Lady" (and maybe "Come Sail Away," though I've always been hard-pressed to really call that one a ballad per se.) No "Show Me the Way." No "Don't Let It End." Even "The Best of Times" and "Babe" haven't been in their set list in decades. (According to setlist.fm, the last time they played either song in concert was '07, and neither's been performed with any regularity since the '90s.) And "Babe," I should point out, is the only actual Number One hit the band ever had. To go entire decades without playing your only Number One hit in concert, even if you're not all that fond of it as a band? I find that a bit inconsiderate, personally. It's far from being my favorite Styx song, but I'd still want and expect to hear it if I shelled out money to see them. I mean ... it's
your biggest hit, for crying out loud. [As a musician myself, I can tell you that my most popular song with fans is not anywhere close to being my favorite song of mine - I wouldn't even rank it in my top twenty - but I wouldn't dream for a second of denying audiences the joy of hearing it, no matter how much I may not particularly want to play it.]
I'm not hopeful that Shaw and JY will ever warm up to a reunion gig, even just a one-off affair, but I would absolutely want to see that. Heck, invite Burtnik along as a guest to join in on any
Edge tunes that get included. (He's still supposedly on good terms with all parties, having both played with the post-DeYoung incarnation of the group for several years as a fill-in for Chuck and also having played quite a few duo shows with DeYoung over the years as well.) Maybe work in a few extracurricular hits, like "Desert Moon" or "Girls with Guns," if just for the fun of hearing the guys play them together for the first time. (I get the feeling DeYoung would have an absolute
ball playing the latter, especially considering the great recurring synth lick on that one.) You could really put one hell of a set list together for such a show if you're open to trying anything.