Anybody knows what time it is; Chicago time.

Byline: Mark Baker The Register-Guard

If you're a baby boomer, then these lyrics probably sound familiar:

Does anybody really know what time it is?

Does anybody really care?

If so I can't imagine why

We've all got time enough to cry.

Or maybe these:

Old days

Good times I remember

Fun days

Filled with simple pleasures

Drive-in movies

Comic books and blue jeans...

Not ringing a bell? Then surely you remember:

Saturday in the Park

I think it was the Fourth of July 

People dancing, people laughing

A man selling ice cream

Singing Italian songs

Can you dig it (Yes, I can).

If you go, there's a good chance you'll hear at least a couple of those staples this Sunday in the park (the 19th of July) when Chicago, the seminal rock 'n' roll band with horns and one of the most successful pop-rock groups of all time, brings its truckload of top 40 hits to Eugene for an 8 p.m. show on the Cuthbert Amphitheater stage.

Chicago also is one of the longest-running bands ever.

The group began its life as the Big Thing in the Windy City in 1967 before moving to Los Angeles in 1968 and changing its name to the Chicago Transit Authority - until the real transit authority threatened to sue. And four - Walter Parazaider (sax and woodwinds), James Pankow (trombone), Robert Lamm (vocals and keyboard) and Lee Loughnane (trumpet) - of the seven original members, all in their 60s now, are still with the band.

What keeps these guys going?

"I have no idea," said Bill Champlin, 62, a keyboard player and vocalist with the band since 1981, speaking from his home in Franklin, Tenn. "I used to think it was curiosity, to see what's around the next bend. But at some point, you know what's around the next bend: another bed, another bunk and another gig."

Parazaider, 64, told CBS News last month that it's the fans and their reaction that has sustained the band through 30 albums (five of which became No. 1), 20 top-10 singles, 120 million records sold and one summer tour after another.

"You have to be a very depressed person to not enjoy people going `yeah!'" Parazaider said.

Chicago launched this summer's tour on June 5 in Orange Beach, Ala., in tandem with another legendary Chicago band that got its start in the late '60s, funksters Earth Wind & Fire. Earth Wind & Fire is playing with Chicago on Saturday at Portland's Rose Garden.

This is Chicago's third summer tour with EWF in the past seven years, but the Cuthbert show will be among a dozen or so solo acts for Chicago this summer.

"It's kind of a breath of fresh air - we can do our own show," said Champlin, whose first solo album in a decade, "No Place Left to Fall," comes out in August.

If you want to sit up front, in the Cuthbert's new seating, it is certainly not an inexpensive show. Top tickets are $114. And the shows with EWF have received mixed reviews so far.

"Chicago should have performed before Earth, Wind and Fire," read the review headline in The Pioneer Press of St. Paul, Minn., on July 2, after the concert at Minneapolis's Target Center on July 1.

"Where EWF felt sleek and effortless, Chicago stumbled when it came to marrying two quite distinct eras of the band's history," wrote the paper's pop music critic, Ross Raihala.

The day before, after the June 30 show in Milwaukee, Dave Tianen of the Journal Sentinel gave a mostly positive review, but wrote that Champlin was "the obvious grandfather in the group" and "looked and sounded a mite frayed" on "Look Away," the band's No. 1 hit from 1988, a new version of which Champlin includes on his upcoming album.

Other reviews have been more positive, including that of The Post-Standard in Syracuse after the June 20 show in Verona, N.Y. Staff writer Mark Bialczak wrote about the "raucous musical stew" created when Chicago and EWF played together, that the crowd had a "fine time" with Chicago's parade of hits and that Parazaider's flute work "was dreamy in "Colour My World," the band's 1970 hit.

Chicago has been doing its thing for so long that its hard to go wrong with songs like 1970's "25 or 6 to 4," 1982's "Hard to Say I'm Sorry" or 1984's "You're the Inspiration." Chicago fans want to hear the hits, said Champlin, a two-time Grammy winner for co-writing EWF's 1979 hit, "After the Love is Gone," and George Benson's "Turn Your Love Around."

"If you get somebody coming to a Chicago gig, and they don't hear the songs they want to hear, they get (ticked) off," said Champlin, who has performed in Oregon many times, including last year's gig at the Lane County Fair with Chicago.

Born in Oakland, Calif., and raised in the San Francisco Bay Area, he formed his first band at the age of 14 in 1961. He created the San Francisco-based Sons of Champlin in 1967, the same year Chicago formed.

The Sons of Champlin even played at the old Eugene Speedway on West 11th Avenue in the early 1970s, Champlin recalled.

"No Place Left to Fall" is Champlin's first solo album in a decade. And he's not the first Chicago member to do his own thing.

The band's frontman from 1967 to 1985, Peter Cetera - who sings backup vocals on the moving lost-love ballad "Never Been Afraid" on Champlin's new album - topped the charts in 1986 with "Glory of Love," the theme song for the film, "The Karate Kid Part II."

Solo albums, especially when you're 62, are a tough gig, said Champlin, who has had more success with solo albums overseas than domestically.

"If you're over 12, you can't make records," Champlin joked about the U.S. music industry's obsession with youth.

Then why do some fans still love Chicago?

"Chicago kind of takes care of itself," Champlin said.

CONCERT PREVIEW

Chicago

When: 8 p.m. Sunday (gates open 6:30 p.m.)

Where: Cuthbert Amphitheater, 555 Day Island Road

Tickets: $64 and $114 reserved; $39 general admission; available at Hult Center box office and TicketsWest outlets