The last two winters at The Venetian, Styx played a whole album front to back: The Grand Illusion in 2025, Pieces of Eight in 2026. For its seventh straight year in the room, the band dropped the album concept and named the run The Hits. Five nights, split between the last weekend of January and the first week of February 2027.
Styx: The Hits at The Venetian Theatre
Styx started playing Las Vegas residencies in 2017, sharing a Venetian bill with former Eagles guitarist Don Felder, and the theater has been its winter base ever since. The seven-man lineup is led by Tommy Shaw and James "JY" Young, with Lawrence Gowan on keyboards and lead vocals, Todd Sucherman on drums, Will Evankovich on guitar and original bassist Chuck Panozzo joining for part of the night.
Where: The Venetian Theatre, The Venetian Resort, center Strip. When: five nights, January 29 to February 6, 2027. Best for: anyone who wore out a copy of Paradise Theatre, and the kids who heard it through the wall.
What Styx played on the 2026 hits tour
No 2027 setlist exists yet, but the band's summer 2026 hits tour with Chicago is the closest preview. That set opened with Fooling Yourself (The Angry Young Man) and Lorelei, ran through Lady, Too Much Time on My Hands, The Grand Illusion, Light Up, Crystal Ball, Rockin' the Paradise, The Best of Times and Blue Collar Man, slipped in two newer songs, Build and Destroy and Our Wonderful Lives, and closed on Come Sail Away before an encore of Mr. Roboto and Renegade.
Last January shows the other half of the picture. With Pieces of Eight played in full, those shows opened on Great White Hope, I'm O.K. and Sing for the Day, and still finished with Too Much Time on My Hands, Mr. Roboto and Come Sail Away. Without a full album to fit in, The Hits has room for more of the catalog than a shared summer bill allowed.
Four multi-platinum albums in a row
Between 1977 and 1981 Styx released four multi-platinum albums in a row: The Grand Illusion, Pieces of Eight, Cornerstone and Paradise Theatre, the last of them the band's first number one on the Billboard 200. Eight singles reached the top 10, and the band has sold more than 54 million records. Gowan, a Canadian solo star before he joined, now sings the songs Dennis DeYoung used to, and Shaw still takes Blue Collar Man and Renegade himself.
More classic rock that winter
Styx opens a run of classic rock dates in Las Vegas. Collective Soul plays in February, The Doobie Brothers later that month and Foreigner in March. For an 80s pop night on the same trip, Cyndi Lauper returns to The Colosseum from February 19.
