SALAMANCA — Get ready to “Roll with the Changes” as REO Speedwagon takes the Seneca Allegany Event Center stage at 7 p.m. Saturday.
With more than 50 years of unforgettable rock performances behind them, REO Speedwagon will perform its nostalgic hits that seem to get better with age.
The classic rock band earned steady radio play and a legion of fans with hits like “In My Dreams,” “Time for Me to Fly,” “Take It On the Run,” “Keep on Loving You” and “Can’t Fight This Feeling,” among others.
The band reached their critical and commercial peak with 1980’s “Hi Infidelity” selling over 10 million copies. Their 1978 album, “You Can Tune a Piano, but You Can’t Tuna Fish” and subsequent follow-ups, “Good Trouble” in 1982 and “Wheels Are Turnin’” in 1984, all went Platinum.
In March 1981, “Keep On Lovin’ You” hit No. 1 on the Billboard Top 40 chart, one of four Top 10 songs REO had from 1980-84.
Formed as a college band at the University of Illinois in the late 1960s. The student band took its name from the REO Speed Wagon, a 1915 truck designed by Ransom Eli Olds. They quickly sped to stardom in the 1970s and ’80s, fueled by a long list of hit songs. Today, the band continues to play regularly to crowds of adoring fans on their concert tours.
In an interview with the Midland Daily News, band member Kevin Cronin said the group had a 10-year run between 1977 and ’87 where a number of songs got into people’s bloodstreams.
“At a certain age, you get connected to music and those songs stay with you,” he said. “Those songs keep people coming back to REO shows year after year, decade after decade.”
The group has undergone many changes of personnel over the years, with members of the band consisting of co-founders Cronin and Neal Doughty along with Bruce Hall, Dave Amato, Bryan Hitt and new keyboard player Derek Hilland, a former Iron Butterfly and Whitesnake member.
According to the Tribune Chronicle, Doughty, the only member of REO Speedwagon who had played every gig, announced his retirement from touring at the beginning of the year, forcing his bandmates to do something they hadn’t done for 34 years — pick a new band member.
Cronin, lead vocals, rhythm guitar and piano; Bruce Hall, bass and backing vocals; and Neil Doughty, keyboards and organ, were part of the band’s commercial peak in the late ’70s and ’80s. Dave Amato, lead guitar and backing vocals, and Bryan Hitt have been in the band since 1989.
“I’m raring to go,” Cronin told the Midland Daily News. “I’m the luckiest guy in the world to be a singer in a rock band that’s been going for 50 years. There’s nothing like standing at the microphone in a place that’s full of people and hearing them singing along with every song, seeing them.”
Through it all, REO Speedwagon has sold more than 40 million records, charting 13 Top 40 hit singles while continuing to play high-energy live shows for audiences across the United States and Canada.
For more information, visit online at reospeedwagon.com and senecaalleganycasino.com. Tickets can be purchased at ticketmaster.com.
