John Waite: Change (Live)

My last few posts have been very personal, and longer than I normally write. The creation of long, thoughtful, daily posts is not sustainable for me, so I am going to continue my focus on artists I have seen live with a few shorter posts this week. Today’s song is by John Waite. I recently posted about the music of The Babys (for which Waite was lead vocalist), so it makes sense to highlight a concert that Ms. Faux and I saw almost 25 years ago. It was a triple bill with Journey as headliner, Peter Frampton as second, and John Waite as opener. Waite has been a friend of Journey since his old Babys bandmate Jonathan Cain joined them in 1980. The show wasn’t all that memorable except for the fact that John Waite was a favorite of Ms. Faux in her teen years and neither of us ever thought we would see him live. He performed 5 or 6 songs, including his signature song “Missing You,” and I remember enjoying all of them.

“Change” was written by Holly Knight while she was in the band Spider. Spider are the answer to several trivia questions: What band did original Late Night with David Letterman bandmember Anton Fig play in?; What band originally recorded the Tina Turner hit “Better Be Good To Me”?; What band featured the vocalist who went on to write the hits “Ragdoll” by Aerosmith, “Obsession” by Animotion, “Love is a Battlefield” by Pat Benatar, and “The Warrior” by Scandal?.

To listen to all of the songs of the day, check out the Radio Faux Show Song of the Day playlist.

• Artists I Have Seen Live