50 Years of "Stage Pass," Michael Stanley Band's Iconic Live Album

On an upcoming October night, the high energy rock ‘n’ roll of a half-century ago will fill the walls of a local auditorium once again. It’s not the original Stage Pass performance, but Jonah Koslen plans to bring the Michael Stanley Band’s iconic set back one more time.

On Oct. 22 and 24, Koslen, who joined Stanley in 1973 to form MSB, will take over the Kent Stage with his Stage Pass 50 shows on the exact anniversary dates of the original performance. Though Stanley died in 2021, his music has lived on through the musicians and fans he influenced. Koslen’s shows this October will serve as his last dedicated tribute to the MSB legacy.

If you speak to a Clevelander who was alive in the ‘70s, they will tell you that MSB was the biggest band of the time. Many of them danced on the lawn as the band broke attendance records at Blossom Music Center in ‘82. But if any of those Clevelanders left the Midwest, they would see that the impact of MSB did not extend much further than Cleveland. 

While other up-and-coming artists or bands on the rise leave the city after getting a strong start here in Cleveland, MSB stayed. Perhaps that’s why they never really took off nationally. Perhaps it was their record label or management. The topic is still debated among music historians in the area to this day.

John Gorman, who served as program director for WMMS for 13 years across the ‘70s and ‘80s, played a role in the local success of MSB by pushing their music with his popular radio platform. 

“They were as good as any of the other bands we were playing on WMMS at the time,” Gorman says. “They had a level of quality that definitely could have gone beyond the limits of Cleveland.”

But Clevelanders wanted them to stay, and the MSB guys really didn’t seem to mind.

“Cleveland had a tremendous amount of talent, led by Michael,” Gorman says. “A lot of good musical talent had to leave town to make it. We thought, We’ve got a lot of good talent here; we should give it exposure.”

The exposure in Cleveland was all the band needed. With sold-out shows at Blossom and broken attendance records at the Coliseum, they were doing just fine for themselves in their hometown.

As the group’s popularity increased, a deal with Epic Records in New York City (facilitated by fellow Clevelander and friend of MSB, Steve Popovich) carried them through the most successful portion of their career. At the request of Popovich, the band decided to record three 1976 performances at the Agora Ballroom for a live album called Stage Pass, released the following year. The double album became their most iconic, capturing the energy and talent of the band in its prime.

“It was a groundbreaking record for the band,” Koslen explains. “It’s still very popular. Some people even say it’s the best live rock album ever.”

He laughs. “There’s some competition for that title, for sure.”

Koslen didn’t just write songs for MSB; he wrote hits. Tunes like “Waste a Little Time on Me,” “Nothing’s Gonna Change My Mind” and “Let’s Get This Show on the Road” are all from the mind of Koslen, translated through the four members of MSB: Stanley, Koslen, Daniel Pecchio, and Tommy Dobeck.

“Back when it was just the four of us,” explains Dobeck, the band’s original drummer. “[Jonah] would just write, write, write. I couldn’t believe how many songs the guy put out.”

“Songs like ‘Waste a Little Time,’ everybody related to,” he continued. “It came out great in the studio because Michael and Jonah just blended so well vocally.”

It’s not just Dobeck that feels this way. Gorman also commented about the cohesive nature of the Stanley/Koslen vocal duo.

“MSB was very interesting because the talent wasn’t just Michael, but the bands he put together,” Gorman says. “When he brought Jonah on board, he really enhanced the band. They wrote and sang differently, but they meshed very well together in the same band.”

“I’ve been writing songs for almost 60 years. I started when I was 17,” Koslen says. “It’s a journey when you do something like that your whole life, and you can look back on what you’ve done. It’s a milestone itself to have that and perform it again, and people still love to hear it. That makes me very happy.”

And people definitely still love it. According to Koslen’s manager Al Kaston, the upcoming Stage Pass 50 performances sold over 1,000 tickets in the first three days, and the shows are nearly sold out.

Dobeck, reminiscing on the Stage Pass days, thinks that the band from that set of performances is the version of the band that people will remember best. “The youth — that’s what made it,” he says. “The energy was out of control.”

The youth will not be lacking in these anniversary performances, as Koslen will be joined on stage by 27-year-old Michael Weber, frontman of The Michael Weber Show. Weber is the music director and lead guitarist for the Stage Pass 50 shows.

“I want it to be authentic to the energy that people felt when they saw the band in the ‘70s. As the lead guitar player, that means playing as ferociously as possible,” Weber explains. “This show is a celebration of what they did when they were kids 50 years ago. We want everybody transported back to being in the Agora Ballroom in ‘76 with the same hopped-up enthusiasm.”

Koslen says these performances mark the last of his MSB-themed shows. After Stanley’s passing, Koslen has loved keeping that music alive, but he believes this is the perfect way to say goodbye. 

“It just seems like the right time,” Koslen says. “I’ll keep playing my own material, but this is a chance to play Michael’s music one last time. This stuff is a lot of fun to play, we have a great band and we’re gonna do it justice.”

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