REO Speedwagon: REO-gate

REO Speedwagon in happier times (cliché, I know!) at Red Rocks, CO Capital Region, 2010

Sjgkfe, CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

 Seems that it's never too late for a band to have problems. Just as oasis come back, other bands fall apart, particularly ones from before thirty years ago I grew up seeing in the charts and on MTV & VH1. It's like a marriage that ran its course, A trite comparison but it's true. REO Speedwagon are no stranger to this, and now they're on the way out because of a row over bass player Bruce Halls medical recovery and frontman Kevin Cronin. A similar situation occurred twice in the late '90s with their friends Styx and contemporaries Journey, as well as Yes less than a decade later, so it's not uncommon, especially as one gets on in age. The jury are out on this one. We've just seen Hall & Oates and Janes Addiction become Behind the Music material (now on Paramount+, sister streamer to MTV and VH1).

 Remaining founding member Neal Doughty stopped touring in 2022 and I saw the band for the last time and without him last year, and it wasn't the same. I also learned co-founder and original drummer Alan Gratzer is originally from Syracuse. I didn't go the year before because I couldn't afford to go to that and Elton John, who was wrapping up his life on the road, and his bass guitarist Matt Bissonette has just taken over for Hall to boot. I just didn't go this year also because I had to cut back on shows like a lot of people are on less essential activities in this economy. Perhaps the spirits of Gary Richrath and the more recently departed Gregg Philbin told me not to go this time as they turn in their graves over this. I might have even skipped Cronins birthday this year because of how he allegedly stabbed his longtime colleague in the back or I'm focussed on other bands and priorities right now. We're riding a real (two in the south at the time of this writing) and proverbial storm out here. It'd be too easy to throw in some Gene Shalit-style puns to what is a sad end to a nearly six decade legacy that started in the Champaign-Urbana area at uni in the bar scene and became an AOR-corporate rock punchline to many. We're all experienced at being human and life is one big Pandoras box. Terry Luttrell from the 1971 début (later of Starcastle) and would-be vocalist Greg X. Volz (who joined Petra instead, who I once liked, while Cronin returned after the Mike Murphy period in 1976) found the Lord.

  It's a right shame to see a band I've known for over forty years' time since I was very young get to this stage so far along, but let's hope they can sort out their differences so they can end the band with some integrity and dignity for the sake of the fans.