On November 9, 2022, Night Ranger celebrated 40 years of a successful career with a special concert that included most of the hits from their back catalogue. The notable difference of this concert was that the songs were specially arranged due to the presence of a youth orchestra, the Contemporary Youth Orchestra, consisting of over 90 musicians aged 12-18 years old based in Ohio. Despite its young age, this orchestra has played with the likes of Styx, Jefferson Starship, Pat Benatar, Kenny Loggins and others. So, let’s just say that they are quite proficient in what they do despite their relatively young age.
As expected, the tracklist of “40 Years and a Night” was almost exclusively based on the first 3 classic albums of Night Ranger. And we say “almost” because we also find “High Road” from the album of the same name which was released in 2014. To tell you the truth, I was expecting to hear songs from “Big Life” and “Man in Motion” which I think are often overlooked by the band. In fact, it’s something we expressed to Kelly Keagy in an interview we did which will be published soon here on Rockpages. As far as the songs are concerned, they have not undergone any major modifications and I can say that the presence of the orchestra is subtle but catalytic. This particular Night Ranger line-up works like a well-oiled machine and so it is truly a dreamlike experience to hear anthems like “Don’t Tell Me You Love Me”, “You Can Still Rock In America”, “Four in the Morning” and of course “Sister Christian” just to name a few. Personally, I’d say the absolute highlights were the extremely moving performance of “Goodbye” and the leveling performance of the track “Night Ranger”.
I gotta say that “40 Years and a Night” is an album that is mainly addressed to the Night Ranger fan base but I think that all the hard rockers out there deserve to check it out to celebrate with the legendary band 40 (+1, now…) years of an illustrious career.
Highlight: “40 Years and a Night” will be released in CD/DVD and Blu-Ray formats.
Sakis Nikas
