Chicago Tribune from Chicago, Illinois • 166

Chicago is back on the track, doing fine after troubled times Sorry, Charlie eter Cetera, bass player 1 1 and vocalist for the band et's start off with the bad news: Don't even I think about heading out to Prince's four a I Rosemont Horizon shows Sunday, Mon-J day, Tuesday and Thursday without your 1 i 1 i 1 1 Bwi Ij mood these days, and it's part of that, although it wasn't the real reason for the decline. I just think we got a little lax and lacka-, daisical, and drugs and booze and all that stuff got involved." Not all the band members were involved with liquor and drugs, says Cetera, and those who were involved consumed the substances to varying degrees. "In the music business, that was the way to go, you know?" he says. "It's right there on the road. It's right there everywhere.

Right in front of your face, everywhere you look. It's fun being on the road, and it's fun being a star, and then you start doing what everybody else does. "You didn't read about it in the papers, but, yeah, we had a lot of problems with that. I think it showed on our records, starting with maybe the 9th album released in 1975 up through the 15th album a greatest-hits package released in 1981. It kind of eroded our determination and drive and our musical conception.

"I kind of straightened up my act at the time of the 15th album, and then -on the 16th we all started getting our act back together. Vari-: ous people sort of straightened up at different times. It was a long1 process, and things got back to normal a couple of years ago. "You know, when we perform now, we're all straight, and that's wonderful. That's how it used to be in the old days.

On the 16th we said, 'Hey, listen, there are still people out there who want to hear our music, so we should give it to them as best we We just rededicated ourselves and proved In talking about Chicago's bleaker times which he now refers to as "a waste" Cetera says he is breaking with a policy the band had easy to understand why. The band currently has a single, "You're the Inspiration," climbing toward the top of the charts, and it's the third single from Chicago to make the charts recently. Its predecessor, "Hard Habit to Break," reached No. 3 on the Billboard listings. The band's single before that, "Stay the Night," cracked the Top 20.

The band's current album, "Chicago 17," is in the Top 10. Thanks in part to video, says Cetera, Chica-. go, which started way back in 1968, has a new, young following and is enjoying a renewed surge of popularity. "Chicago is back!" Cetera says. "People Had kind of given us up for gone, kind of written us off the books, and here we are again with what's going to be the third Top 20 single." Chicago will be back in their hometown Saturday at the UIC Pavilion for a concert to benefit the Terry Kath Memorial Scholarship Fund at De Paul University's School of Music.

The band established the fund in memory of Kath, a group member who died in an accidental shooting in 1978. While Chicago is clicking along now, the band has had its problems in the past, Cetera volunteers. During the late '70s and the early '80s, he says, there was a lull in the band's career that resulted in part from lackadaisical attitudes and in part from liquor and drugs. "It started a year or two before Terry's death," recalls Cetera. "We had sort of a decline in our musical prowess.

Our records weren't selling quite as well as they used to. Things just started a slow, slow decline. Terry's death was sort of if 1:1 Cnicago's Peter Cetera second from le kind of given us up for gone. here of keeping its dirty linen well hid- wit! aen. kin 'U nraM 'Keep the bad stuff to yourself, and and! own uuneis or enuugn scraicn 10 DriDe somebody out of theirs.

The shows have been sold out for weeks. By the time you read this, Chicago, playing Saturday at UIC Pavilion, probably will De sold out as well, though a few tickets may be available. And you can add U2 to your list of Things Not to Do; its Tuesday night show at Aragon Ballroom is all sold. A note to those who have U2 tickets: arrive real early, because seating is general admission. On the brighter side, here are a few things you can get into: Lakeside, with special guests the Bar-Kays, the Dazz Band and One Way, tonight at UIC Pavilion; Donny Marie Osmond's special holiday show, tonight and twice Saturday 4:30 and 8 p.m.

at Holiday Star Theatre, Merrillville, the Beach Boys, 4 and 7:30 p.m. Sunday at the Star; Pat Metheny, 7:30 and 11 p.m. Monday at Bismarck Theatre. Holiday Star shows available through Tick-etron; Pavilion and Bismarck shows through Ticket-master. And some good news for those of you Who couldn't get into the Marlboro Country Music concert last weekend: Two of the stars of that show are coming back to town.

Lee Greenwood, with special guest Gary Morris, has been added to Holiday Star's lineup Jan. 19, and Ricky Skaggs plays Holiday Star-on April 21. Now on sale Two shows have been added for the Temptations and the Four Tops, playing Feb. 1 at Holiday Star; both new shows are Feb. 2.

Also on sale: the Ramones, Dec. 14 at Aragon Ballroom; Albert Collins with Koko Taylor, Dec. 28 two shows at Park West; Aerosmith, Jan. 11 at Holiday Star; Leo Kottke, Jan. 26 at Park West; Paul Revere and the Raiders, Feb 22 at Park West; the Statler Brothers, Feb.

23 and 24 four shows at Holiday Star; Roger Whittaker, May 10-12 three shows at Holiday Star; Liberace, April 26-May 5 12 shows at Holiday Star. Holiday Star shows through Ticketron; all others through Ticketmaster. If you live in Du Page County and even if you don't, the College of Du Page's Student Activities box office has tickets in which you may be interested. On sale are fifth and sixth-row seats for the Chicago Symphony Orchestra's Feb. 16 and May 10 concerts in Orchestra Hall, for $11 each.

The box office also has tickets for the 2 p.m. Dec. 22 performance of "A Christmas Carol" at the Auditorium Theater. Call 858-2800, extension 2241, for more information. Something special The Field Museum and Marshall Field's have a nice way to beat some of the holiday shopping hassle.

Saturdays through Dec. 22, courtesy buses will run between the Soldier Field parking lot, Field Museum and Marshall Field's State Street store all free. Parking will run you $1.25, a downtown bargain. Buses run every half hour from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m.

And kids are no problem the museum offers a number of holiday activities for kids, all free with museum admission. The Milwaukee Ballet and Orchestra performs "The Nutcracker" this weekend at Paramount Arts Centre, Aurora, and Paramount offers two specials of note. First, students with I.D. can purchase day-of-performance tickets to any of the four shows at half price; second, children 12 and younger are eligible for a drawing held during each show's intermission, the winner receiving a hand-painted nutcracker doll worth, say the Paramount people, $25. That would be one less thing you'd have to buy for Christmas.

Show times are 2 and 7:30 p.m. Saturday and 3 and 7:30 p.m. Sunday; call ThCSmmohs" Theatre offers a "strike this weekend to its production of the pro-union show "U.S.A." Anyone flashing a Chicago Teachers Union card at the door gets in free. And for all weekends, this month, anyone bringing in canned goods to benefit the needy gets a $2 ticket discount. Phil Vend Ticket information it current as of Wednesday.

For later information on these and other event not listed, cheek with the appropriate bo office. juai uuk. auuui me gooa siuii, ne says. "Well, I don't think that's wed ngni. mat was always the policy ft! Deck halls a ith Christmas fast Leach in I artist Rick Tlimn hac rnma nn the New made frd with a couple of distinctive or- mistreatl I naiucuis mai ceieDrate tne season in a uniquely Chicago style.

On the Chicago to noon family i which holiday rifid col( If you have a sense of civic pride and a pair of scissors, the ornaments here can be cut out and hung from the Christmas tree or used as wall decorations. You may want to create other ornaments with a municipal motif. Always EJPJjkf the, Los Angeles ornament, crafted, from flyers for facial-treatment salons and folded during a leisurely period of four weeks into the shape of Robin workshoi member dren unc Davins a 312-642-.