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REO Speedwagon |
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Saginaw, Michigan, November 1984. REO Speedwagon just performed in the local arena, and they are staying in the Ramada Inn across the street.
At that moment a wedding celebration is in full swing over there. And right at the moment the band enters the hotel, REO’s big hit ‘Keep on Loving You’ is played. It could have been coincidence; it could have been a very bright best man. In any case, singer Kevin Cronin is surprised and makes his way straight into the banquet hall, where he hugs the startled bride and groom and makes their wedding day.
By Hans van den Heuvel
We don’t know if the married couple is still together, but REO Speedwagon certainly is. And they’ve been around since 1967, delivering albums with funny names like You Can Tune a Piano But You Can’t Tuna Fish since the end of the 1970s. Their major breakthrough came in 1980 with their, mind you, ninth studio album Hi Infidelity, but that really hit the mark. The record included hits like ‘Keep on Loving You’, ‘Take It on the Run’ and ‘Don’t Let Him Go’, and REO Speedwagon became a household name in America. ‘The popularity and energy we received after Hi Infidelity was really unheard of,’ says Kevin Cronin. ‘Before that album, we were equally known in Frankfurt, Berlin, London, Amsterdam and New York. But all of a sudden everyone in the States had heard from us. That was all I had ever wished for. Hi Infidelity was a phenomenon. There are millions of people that adore that record. In those days I wanted to leave my body behind on the stage, to observe the band from a distance. You can always look at yourself on television, but that never allows you to really share the audience’s experience.’
REO never received a lot of support from the American media. Even in their heyday, the prestigious magazine Rolling Stone only wrote one lead article about the band. And that was one that described the entire genre of melodious hard rock band, including, besides REO: Styx, Journey, Foreigner, and Survivor. Rolling Stones called them the ‘faceless bands’. Keyboard player and founder Neal Doughty shrugs. ‘That name only implied we didn’t have two pretty boys in the band, like you saw on the covers of other magazines. When you put the faces of Mick Jagger or Steven Tyler on your cover, your magazine would sell automatically. It’s true; we’re more like the guys next door. But let me tell you one thing: in the end, this might be the reason we’re still around. All those “faceless bands” have had replacements in their line-ups and survived. That would never have happened when everyone had known all the faces in the band.’ This just goes to show: every disadvantage has its advantage [famous quote from Johan Cruijff].
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