The Rascals & Daryl Hall at the Minnesota State Fair Grandstand, 8-28-25

It was a joyful and rollicking good time at the Minnesota State Fair Grandstand, Thursday night, with the double bill concert featuring 1960s pop and rhythm & blues icons, The Rascals, and soul singer/rock and roll icon Daryl Hall, co-headlining a concert.  The Rascals began the show with a song called "A Ray of Hope" dedicated to the children who lost their lives in the Annunciation Catholic Church shooting that happened the day before, in Minneapolis.  From there, The Rascals weaved in and out of their classic popular hit songs, and they included snippets and quotes of popular songs of their contemporaries from the 1960s, and in this hour of need of positivity and healing after a tragedy, the music served as balm and comfort, upbeat and joyous the whole way through the opening set.

Songs like "I've Been Lonely Too Long", "Mustang Sally" (Sir Mack Rice's song famously recorded by Wilson Pickett), and "People Got to Be Free" all had their own structure, while the band also jammed and intertwined different songs into these numbers creating unexpected medleys.  "I've Been Lonely Too Long" included a snippet of The Temptations' "Ain't Too Proud to Beg" and woven into "Mustang Sally" was a tease of disco band Lipps Inc.'s, "Funky Town", which has a Minnesota connection, through the songwriter, Steve Greenberg.  Original Rascals songs such as "A Beautiful Morning", "A Girl Like You", "I Ain't Gonna Eat Out My Heart Anymore", and "Groovin' ", were woven in and out of their tapestry of musical memories.

Towards the end of the set, the medley's continued with "People Got to Be Free" paying tribute to America, and paying tribute to our resolve in times of trouble, with snippets of Martha Reeves & The Vandella's "Nowhere to Hide" and Sly & The Family Stone's "Everyday People".  The Rascals closed their set with a signature tune, which, contrary to what some may think, is a cover.  "Good Lovin' ", is a song they made famous, but it was first performed a band who was no doubt a contemporary of The Rascals, called The Olympics.

Daryl Hall headlined the show with his band which is also a group that he performs with on his YouTube concert series, "Live From Daryl's House" which is featured on YouTube, and in which he collaborates with other musicians and musical acts in his home studio.  Many of the songs are attributed to former collaborator, former musical partner, John Oates as well.  But now, Daryl Hall is very much steering and captaining his own ship when it comes to his music.  Hall played piano and sang and was backed by a skilled and confident band of musicians including his longtime musical collaborator Charles DeChant on tenor saxophone, who has played with Hall & Oates for nearly half a century, starting back in 1976.

So many of the songs were recognizable to longtime fans.  "Maneater", "Kiss on My List", "Private Eyes", "Rich Girl", "Every Time You Go Away", and they were interspersed with new material recent written and released by Daryl Hall for his solo records.  Songs such as "Walking In Between Raindrops" which is a new tune, and his classic "I'm In a Philly Mood" which is an ode to his hometown, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, which, like Minneapolis, with Prince and others, has its own musical sound and identity with soul music in the 1970s thanks to the songwriting and producer duo of Kenny Gamble and Leon Huff.  Gamble and Huff's sound and production style paved the way for what would become the disco beat.

The second half of the show featured and leaned heavily on more of the catalog of Hall and his now former collaborator, Oates, with ballads such as "Every Time You Go Away" (a song Hall wrote and which was covered by Paul Young in 1985, but originally recorded by Hall & Oates five years earlier in 1980, and yet, never released as a single.  This one was followed up by more recongizeable tunes that the crowd really got into towards the end of the set before the fireworks.  The rhythm & blues ballad "Sara Smile", the upbeat funk of "I Can't Go for That (No Can Do)", and the cherry on the musical sundae, another upbeat dance worthy tune, "You Make My Dreams Come True".  A night of healing, nostalgia, and fun, provided by a couple of great bands and top-notch musicians, The Rascals and Daryl Hall.