(Live Review) REO SPEEDWAGON + LOVERBOY - Rockford, IL (11/22/24)
By
The Beard & Little Johnny
Welcome friends, fans, and followers to show #72 and bands #235-236 of our 2024 season. Tonight, the Beard and Little Johnny headed to the BMO arena in Rockford, Illinois for the 70’s and 80’s classic rock of dinosaurs REO Speedwagon and, only slightly younger, Canadian rockers Loverboy.
Little Johnny, upon being told, “Hey, since The Beard went to your thrash metal show, now you are going to this.” responded by saying “Cool, I have never been the youngest person in an entire arena. Guess that ends tonight. Question though Beard, will they have beer or is it just going to be Metamucil?”
Little smartass barbs aside, this will be the Beard's first opportunity to see REO in a live setting despite having semi-followed them since the mid 70’s. Although original keyboardist (Neal Doughty) and thirty-seven-year bassist (Bruce Hall) are still considered “in the band”, they either no longer tour (Doughty), or are currently recovering from serious back surgery (Hall), leaving vocalist (Kevin Cronin) as the only on-stage member who had anything to do with 99% of their expected set list. Once again, like their fellow classic rock Wooly Mammoths Foreigner, live REO Speedwagon in 2024 is dangerously close to being a tribute band. (Ed: And not a very good one at that!)
Despite having had over thirty official band members throughout their half century plus career, the classic era REO (1971-85) charted thirteen top forty hits and sold over forty million albums, so they indeed must be recognized as classic rock successes. Of their sixteen studio albums, none performed better than 1980’s Hi Infidelity and the Beard expected a heavy dose of those songs on tonight’s set list. Before we got there though, we had a set from the openers, Calgary’s own Loverboy.
LOVERBOY
Loverboy, also a band that has been touring for over forty years, still boasts four of their original five members. In terms of authenticity, Loverboy is the real deal. That said, absolutely no one on that stage has been a boy for over half a century.
Loverboy has released nine albums over their four-decade long career, but singer Mike Reno kept their setlist locked between 1980-87.
Coming out with the most recent song they would play tonight, "Notorious" (from 1987’s Wildside), the BMO arena sound was initially S.U.C.K. About the end of the first song, however, the techs seemed to get it dialed in much better.
Loverboy stayed old school with "Lucky Ones" (from 1981’s Get Lucky), then "Queen of Broken Hearts" (from 1983’s Keep it Up.) I do have to say for four pretty old guys, Loverboy was playing a nice sounding set.
"Take me to the Top" (from Get Lucky) though had an interlude section that reminded me more of smooth jazz than rock n roll. After some back and forth with the Rockford crowd about what an honor it was to play there, Reno started "The Kid is Hot Tonight", which was their first charting single ever from initial release Loverboy (1980.)
The second part of their set though hit everything the cursory fan would know including, "Loving Every Minute of It" (from the 1985 album of the same name.) That one woke the crowd up big, and you should check out the Beard's TikTok page for some great video footage. (@thebeard0728)
"Hot Girls in Love" from Keep it Up was a solid number and so was "Turn Me Loose" from their debut album. There has long been speculation that Mike Reno uses backing tracks because of the odd way he moves the microphone from his face to his forehead while singing, but on his one high note it appeared from my viewpoint that he hit it. It wasn’t clean and perfect (like on a backing track), but more like what a 70-year-old guy would sound like getting his voice up there one time. I am guessing it was legit.
Of course, on the closer, "Working for the Weekend" from Get Lucky, the crowd thundered the lyrics with unadulterated glee. People absolutely LOVED that one and it may well have been the loudest crowd response of the entire evening.
Loverboy, frankly speaking, were five old warhorses who clearly understood the objective of a warmup act. They took a cold crowd and by the set’s end had them cheering clapping and singing loudly. That is called doing your job correctly.
Little Johnny gruffly admitted, “Beard, I’ve actually heard a couple of these before. Some of the older teachers at the Orphanage played them way back when. I admit it, they are not too bad for five guys that are what, about 350 combined years old?” (Ed: And over 1200 pounds combined too.)
Despite Johnnys sarcastic math, the Beard agreed Loverboy was a fun opening set and is awarding a better-than-expected 86/100.
REO SPEEDWAGON
REO opened with “Don’t let him go” and “Take it on the run,” both from Hi Infidelity, so it certainly did not take very long to start mining from that album. “Keep Pushing” from R.E.O. Album was next.
I immediately noticed a lot of “different” vocal phrasing by singer Kevin Cronin. Musically, the songs sounded the same as I remembered with clean guitar work from Dave Amato, who has now been with the band for thirty-five years, but ironically joined in 1989 which was a couple of years after REO’s last big album, as well as anything that was on tonight’s set list.
Essentially the crowd did not seem to care about Cronin’s odd vocal phrasing, they just sang louder. To many people in the audience, REO was just a live jukebox that played the songs they wanted to sing.
“Live Every Moment” was one I was not as familiar with, but I enjoyed the sentiment as well as the song. I told Little Johnny, “This one is a life lesson.” Johnny just said, “Old people are weird.”
Two more in a row from Hi Infidelity, “Tough Guys” & “Wish You Were There.” They are certainly leaning heavily into that album. On “Wish You Were There,” the arena was well lit up with cell phones (ala the old lighter days.) I appreciated the nod to the old and the new.
Cronin told a story about how new “touring” bassist Matt Bissonnette was also a meteorologist. Bissonnette then stated, “There’s a 100% chance of ROCK.” Before the band launched into “Music Man,” Little Johnny leaned over and said, “The next stupid “Dad” joke and I am out of here.”
The iconic hit, “I Can’t Fight This Feeling” also had different and odd lyrical phrasing from Cronin which made the song sound a bit disjointed to me as my brain responded with “That’s not the way that song goes.,” but once again the crowd did not care. They happily sang right through it. Honestly, the crowd sang it better.
Cronin told a story about original guitarist Gary Richrath and how Gary made him the singer he became and therefore the next song was dedicated to Richrath as they think of him each night they play. A lovely sentiment, but Amato HAS been with them thirty-five years now, so I do not know how much he loves hearing every night about how great the guy he replaced was. (Ed: I saw the band live in the 80s. Richrath was one of the best live guitarists I've ever seen. Phenomenal.)
They knocked out a more bluesy sounding “Son of a Poor Man,” which took REO and infused a bit of ZZ Top. Good mix of styles on that one, and nice keyboard solo by Derek Hilland. Sadly, that was the last song I enjoyed.
I really really wanted more from "Golden Country" than they delivered. The 1977 live album “You Get What You Play For” had an iconic eight plus minute live version that the band closed the show with back then. That version was incendiary, and on this, my chance to see REO live, I wanted that version. I wanted a flamethrower, and I got a single match. It was so unsatisfying.
Same with "Time For Me to Fly". It sounded winded, like maybe it should have been “Time for me to limp along with my walking stick.” Likewise, "Riding the Storm Out” sounded a full step slow. It was like they were supposed to be playing at 45 but instead performed that one at 33 1/3. We were not riding the storm out; we were watching it drizzle on stage.
At this point in the show The Speedwagon seemed out of gas. The encores were “Keep on Loving You”, with more of Cronin’s disjointed phrasing that was more and more resembling the vocal stylings of William Shatner, not REO Speedwagon, and a “Roll with the Changes”, that despite a spirited effort by every band member, could have been titled “Stroll with the Changes”.
Afterwards, just sitting and reflecting, Little Johnny said, “I know we have seen a lot of bands from your generation this year that still had it, but man Beard, those dudes sounded old.” “In THIS case, I have to agree with you Johnny.”
Right before exiting the stage, Keving Cronin said, “I ain’t done yet.,” I thought to myself - Yes. Yes you are. Just like Foreigner last year, I will award REO Speedwagon a 77/100 (on past glory.), but boys, it really is time to fly, and you can ride the storm out right off the stage.
So, that was a rather disappointing show #72, and we are one step closer to wrapping up our 2024 season. Remember in January to check out the Beard & Little Johnny’s eight-part top 40 sets of 2024. That is when the lad and I break down individually who we thought were the best acts and performances of the entire year (right here on The Mighty Decibel). In the meantime, follow us on TikTok at thebeard0728 (for great video footage of all the bands we reviewed), and of course follow our non-metal column on Facebook by friending and following Mark McQueen. So, from the Beard & Little Johnny, remember “Live Life,” “Stay Heavy” and “Horns Up.”
REO Speedwagon live
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