Lucky Boys Confusion mark 25 years of Throwing the Game at House of Blues

The suburban Chicago band that took "Fred Astaire" to radio celebrates its major-label debut with an early Saturday show on Dearborn.

If you went to high school anywhere near the western suburbs around the turn of the millennium, there's a decent chance a Lucky Boys Confusion song is wired permanently into your memory. On Saturday the band gives you a reason to dust it off.

Lucky Boys Confusion play House of Blues Chicago on Saturday, Nov. 14, with a 5 p.m. start. Tickets are through Ticketmaster. Note the early time: this is a late-afternoon show, so you'll be out in time for dinner and a second plan if you have one.

The occasion is an anniversary. Choose Chicago lists the show as a 25th-anniversary celebration of Throwing the Game, the band's major-label debut. The album came out on May 8, 2001, on Elektra Records, with Howard Benson producing, according to its Wikipedia entry).

That record is the one that carried the band beyond the suburbs. Lucky Boys Confusion came out of the Downers Grove and Naperville area and signed with Elektra in 2000. From Throwing the Game, the song "Fred Astaire" caught a wave of radio momentum, picked up a video and ended up in films including Looney Tunes: Back in Action, Without a Paddle and New York Minute. For a band that cut its teeth in the Chicago area, that was a long way to travel on one song.

The major-label chapter didn't last. With Elektra's subsequent demise, the band soon found itself without a label. What's remarkable is what happened next: rather than fading, Lucky Boys Confusion stayed a fixture at home. The band followed with Commitment in 2003 and later Closing Arguments, and in 2017 the Illinois Entertainer put them on its cover.

Lucky Boys Confusion have played Chicago more than any other market in our listings: 33 shows.

The loyalty runs both ways. Lucky Boys Confusion have played Chicago more than any other market in our listings, 33 shows, and a room the size of House of Blues, which holds about 1,800, is a sign of how many people still want to hear these songs live a quarter-century on.

There's something particular about a hometown anniversary show. The band isn't trying to win anyone over. The crowd isn't there to discover anything. Everyone already knows how the record goes, and the whole point is to hear it played loud, in order, by the people who made it, surrounded by others who wore out the same CD. Album-anniversary nights tend to be equal parts concert and reunion, and the reunion part is half the reason to buy a ticket.

So text the people you used to drive to shows with. Saturday afternoon on Dearborn is going to feel a lot like 2001, in the best possible way.

Sources: Choose Chicago: Lucky Boys Confusion – Throwing the Game 25th Anniversary (choosechicago.com); Wikipedia: Lucky Boys Confusion (en.wikipedia.org); Wikipedia: Throwing the Game (album) (en.wikipedia.org); Wikipedia: Commitment (Lucky Boys Confusion album) (en.wikipedia.org); Wikipedia: Closing Arguments (album) (en.wikipedia.org); Illinois Entertainer: Cover Story: Lucky Boys Confusion (illinoisentertainer.com); Apple Music: Lucky Boys Confusion (music.apple.com); Ticketmaster: Lucky Boys Confusion 25 Years (ticketmaster.com)