Anyone who knows me, even on a casual basis, can tell you what my favorite pastime is. Here's a hint...it starts with "live" and ends with "music." I like, no, I love to go to concerts. Whether the venue is a tiny bar or a massive sports stadium, no matter if the band is an up-and-comer or a certified legend, the motto I live by is "Always go to the show." Or, more practically stated, as I have told many friends, "I don't see every show, but I see every one that I can.”

As an avid concertgoer, I keep track of shows, but only to a degree. I save ticket stubs, but not every concert requires tickets, or in many cases the venue just checks your name off a list. I have heard of people who meticulously keep track of all the shows they see, movies they watch, albums they listen to, etc. But who has time for that? In addition I suspect that the people who do this don't see as many shows as I do.

Enter modern technology. This past year, 2018, was the year I fully embraced the calendar in my phone. I kept track of every show I wanted to see, and if I ended up not going to a particular show, I removed it from the calendar. If I went to a multiple band show and missed any of the acts, I only listed the bands I saw. In the end I was left with an accurate look at a year in the life of a concert addict. Starting with Clutch on New Year's morning (they played Express Live for New Year's Eve 2017, taking the stage at 11:30 p.m. and playing until 1:00 a.m. on January 1st of this year); and ending with Colin Gawel and The Bowlers at the traditional December 23rd Woodlands Tavern gig, this year conveniently held at the easily manageable matinee hour of 4:00 p.m.; it was a typically full year.

It's always hard for me to choose highlights from a year's worth of shows. For me live music played well is a sublime experience in and of itself. But this year I can easily say that two nights of Pearl Jam in their hometown of Seattle was heads above all other shows, particularly Night Two, which has already attained mythological status among Pearl Jam fanatics. The Missoula, Montana Pearl Jam show a few nights later takes an easy 3rd place spot. Double doses of Clutch (previously mentioned New Year's show and a co-headliner stint at the InkCarceration Festival in Mansfield, Ohio), and Lucero (opening for Frank Turner at Express Live in June...where they performed their entire as-yet-unreleased album as their set; and a headlining show at Skully's later in the year, where they played a request of mine...a song they haven't played in a decade) were fitting, as the albums both bands released in 2018 were my absolute favorite offerings of the year.

The Rumba Cafe remains my favorite venue to see a band, anywhere. And this year at Rumba I was treated to face-melting sets from Dan Baird & Homemade Sin, Drivin' N' Cryin', American Aquarium, Brandy Zdan, and Aaron Lee Tasjan, who was the biggest surprise of the year. I had not seen him previously, and I knew he would be good, but I wasn't prepared for just how mind-blowing of a performer he is.

There's really far too many highlights to mention. You will also not be shocked to hear that I have zero plans to slow down any time soon. I already have Cher, Nick Mason's Saucerful Of Secrets, Kiss, and Iron Maiden on my calendar for 2019. Can't wait to see what other artists fill in all those other, as yet still blank, boxes. If you see me at a show in the new year, say hello, and let's rock!

Below is a list of all the bands I saw in 2018 (In many cases two or more bands were seen on one bill. This is a list of bands seen in total, and number of times I saw them):

Colin Gawel (5x)

Pearl Jam (3x) (click here to jump into Kevin’s excellent Pearl Jam Road Trip blog)

Trash Junkies (3x)

Clutch (2x)

James McMurtry (2x)

Jason Isbell & The 400 Unit (2x)

Lucero (2x)

Race Of Devils (2x)

A Perfect Circle

Aaron Lee Tasjan

Adam Kamm & The One Drops

Alice In Chains

American Aquarium

ASG

Berlin

Black Label Society

Black Spirit Crown

Blackberry Smoke

Bourbon Train

Brandy Zdan

Brett Michaels

Carach Angren

Corey Branan

Corrosion Of Conformity

Dan Baird & Homemade Sin

Dee Snider

Devildriver

Dokken

Don Felder

Drive-By Truckers

Drivin' N' Cryin'

Foghat

Frank Turner

Fu Manchu

Glenn Hughes

Goatwhore

Hall & Oates

Henry Rollins

Hiss Golden Messenger

Jake The Snake Roberts

John Moreland

Kingpin

Lita Ford

Lo-Pan

Magic Dick

Michael Schenker Fest

Moodshifter

Mr. Speed

Orphaned Land

REO Speedwagon

Satyricon

Sevendust

Sheryl Crow

Sleep

Snowblynd

Steve Earle

Styx

SubRosa

Suicidal Tendencies

Terry Davidson & The Gears

The Hold Steady

The Magpie Salute

The Shelter People

The Sword

Tool

Train

Tyr

Warrant

Willie Phoenix

Yes, featuring Anderson, Rabin & Wakeman

"We're very lucky in the band in that we have two visionaries, David and Nigel, they're like poets, like Shelley and Byron. They're two distinct types of visionaries, it's like fire and ice, basically." - Derek Smalls, "This Is Spinal Tap"

It's no secret that most of my favorite bands feature multiple songwriters, each with distinct personalities. I usually blame Donna Knappie for this.

Donna was my 16-year-old babysitter in 1977, solely responsible for brainwashing 3-year-old Matt by placing a brand new copy of KISS' Alive II in his hands. Upon opening the gatefold LP, the sight of the larger than life pyrotechnics of the Love Gun version of this band firing on all cylinders completely mesmerized me. I had never seen anything like this, and it completely terrified me. Naturally, I immediately led my parents to the nearest Sam Goody in order to demand that they purchase a copy of the LP Destroyer before I could bring myself to go to sleep that night.

I have obsessively followed KISS for the subsequent 38 years of my life.

Thanks, Donna.

Truthfully, blaming Donna is just a cop-out. You see, I had also convinced my parents to buy me another album earlier in that same year, Queen's News of the World. This album also featured a larger than life iconography, in the form of a large robot killing the members of Queen. The inner gatefold was an illustration of the same robot descending on the rest of the people in what would be Queen's audience, through a torn-out hole in the pavilion. I was utterly horrified, and I couldn't possibly look away, or stop listening.

It turns out that toddler Matt was highly suggestible to bizarre imagery in music.

More important to my formative musical philosophy, beyond the visual cues, was that each of these two bands featured multiple songwriters/vocalists, each contributing their own brand of songwriting and style to the mix. In Queen, Mercury's whimsical folly complemented the hard-edged crunch of May's power. Deacon's plaintive delivery and calculated structure mirrored the visceral spontaneity and emotional guts of Taylor's rage. In KISS, Stanley's Raspberries conjurings matched Simmons' summoned Beatles, and Frehley's distilled Hendrix counterbalanced Criss's Faces-by-way-of-Krupa. You get the idea. I became hooked on this formula of music, and I've responded to it in many other bands I've followed.

I digress.

I'm writing this article because we lost someone big in the rock and roll community last week, but you didn't hear about it.

We lost Gary Richrath.

Gary Richrath was the lead guitarist and one of the primary songwriting forces in REO Speedwagon during the first 20 years of their professional career. He was a blistering player that had a knack for songwriting and often played by instinct, probably a much more important trait than anything anyone ever got with a formal education in music. In the formative years of the band, he was the glue that held it all together, often while the band barely made ends meet on their live reputation, largely built on Richrath's prowess. He wrote their biggest early hit, "Ridin' the Storm Out," while the group itself rode the storm out of three lead vocalists in three consecutive albums.

Eventually, the band settled on Kevin Cronin in front, and never looked back after that lineup finally clicked. Ironically, the band had already hired Cronin for their sophomore slump of an effort dubiously titled R.E.O./T.W.O., and immediately fired him after realizing what they needed in a lead vocalist resembled an extra in the film Dazed and Confused, rather than the Least Photogenic Guy In Rock History. It turned out they were wrong, and Richrath had the balls to admit this. He asked Cronin back after three more tepid albums (Side note: the studio version of "Ridin' the Storm Out" features Dazed and Confused on lead vocals, while the later, more popular live version features Cronin).

I digress, again.

You see, the above quote by our friend Derek Smalls has a rather large grain of truth to it, like most other things in the brilliant mockumentary by Rob Reiner. Tufnel and St. Hubbins complement each other in a way that creates undeniable chemistry, just as Simmons, Stanley, Criss and Frehley did, just as May, Mercury, Taylor and Deacon did.

....and if Cronin, the talented pianist/guitarist/vocalist, was one of those visionaries of REO, the relatively unheralded, less remembered Gary Richrath was, in equal part, the other. Richrath was the fire, with the steely bite of his Les Paul cutting through any song, combining all the swagger of every '70s band put together in his effortless mastery of the fretboard and mercurial songwriting. Cronin, on the other hand, was the ice, the calculated pop songwriter who delivered melody in measure, carefully crafting arrangements and finding just the right blend of soft rock with pop sensibility to skyrocket the band into rock and roll's stratosphere.

It was the combination of these two men together that guaranteed unparalleled success for REO. Although Cronin wrote many of the biggest pop hits of the day, including "Keep on Loving You," and "Don't Let Him Go," it was Richrath who matched him step for step with "Take It On The Run," and "In Your Letter." All four of these songs struck top 40 gold on Billboard's charts in 1981 as singles from the band's smash hit Hi Infidelity, an LP that went on to sell over 10 million copies and became the single best selling album of 1981. Not bad for a bunch of kids from Champaign and Peoria.

Perhaps the most fitting and infamous tale of their partnership is in the details of the most famous song of these four, "Keep On Loving You." Hi Infidelity's recording marked a departure point for the band, one in which a definitively more pop approach would be incorporated in the songwriting over the band's previous pure hard rock leanings. Richrath was particularly resistant to this change, especially when Cronin brought in a last-minute piano ballad to add to the record. As Cronin played the track for the rest of the band, Richrath became increasingly agitated, especially as he stewed over the lack of room for his trademark tobacco-burst Les Paul. When it came time for him to track, he was riled up enough to turn the distortion all the way up on his amplifier, in order to emphasize his distaste, but also to make a point about the lack of room for his style within this new approach.

Richrath plugged in. The tapes began to roll. He reached for the volume knob on his guitar....

....and as soon as the rest of the band heard the dirge-like guitar over the rest of the track, they knew they were hearing magic. This contrast of tone, this juxtaposition of gentle, delicate piano and a yearning lyric set to a maelstrom of distortion created a desperate longing.

The band immediately knew they had their hit single.

REO had a few more hits after Hi Infidelity, but never quite reached those stratospheric heights again in album form. Cronin continued to push them into a pop direction, and a disillusioned Richrath eventually retired from the band in 1989. He made a few more appearances sporadically, taking solace in solo work where he could, but the last 25 years of his life were largely spent out of the limelight. REO became Cronin's band, and eventually they rested on the laurels of their previous legacy like so many other Classic Rock juggernauts.

However, those magical years of fire & ice shouldn't be forgotten, and Gary shouldn't be forgotten either, and that's why I'm writing this. Gary was great; Gary was legendary. From the moment he plugged in, he was ferocious. Every time I hear the lead guitar work in "Roll With The Changes," a shiver goes down my spine, no matter how many times I've heard it before. Come to think of it, I think I'll dial it up again.

Keep on Rollin', Gary. Rest in peace.

Titre : Keep On Loving You Interprète : Reo Speedwagon Année : 1980 Auteurs compositeurs : Kevin Cronin Durée : 3 m 24 s Label : Epic

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