REO Speedwagon brings 50 years of hits to Spartanburg: Upstate Beat

If you see the classic rockers REO Speedwagon at the Spartanburg Memorial Auditorium on March 29, you might be seeing lead singer, songwriter and guitarist Kevin Cronin during one of his more joyful moments.

Even after spending more than 50 years fronting the multiplatinum band and selling over 40 million albums worldwide, there’s one song that takes Cronin back to his early days.

“When I was 20 years old,” Cronin says, “I was visiting a friend in Boulder, Colorado. I picked up his guitar. I’d just seen the Woodstock movie and I remembered the scene with Richie Havens playing with his thumb wrapped around the top of the guitar neck and I thought ‘Well, let me try that.’ And I strummed the guitar and it sounded amazing. And from that came ‘Time for Me to Fly.’”

REO Speedwagon — Photo by Randee St. Nicholas

It’s a song the band plays every night, and Cronin is often moved by the crowd’s reaction.

“Now when we’re on stage and I play those opening chords, the whole audience reacts like a bolt of lightning just went through their nervous systems. And I’m jettisoned right back to sitting on my buddy’s porch in Boulder, But I’m really standing here in front of thousands of people and they’re all singing along, so it’s that’s pretty amazing.”

Anyone planning to attend the show should be ready for a lot of those kinds of moments, because for this tour, REO Speedwagon is playing every song on its 1980 album “Hi Infidelity,” which sold more than 10 million copies and spawned classic rock hits including “Keep on Loving You” and “Take It on the Run.”

Cronin says that playing the album front to back every night has reminded him of some of the deep cuts the band has rarely revisited.

“There are a couple of songs on ‘Hi Infidelity’ that we never played live,” Cronin says, “and I got a chance to take another look at them from a different point of view, which has been a lot of fun. I actually learned to like the album more through playing of all the songs all the way through.”

Now 72 years old, Cronin is still having the time of his life rocking out with REO Speedwagon.

“I’m just — I feel like luckiest guy in the world,” he says. “I get to walk onstage with an amazing crew and the best equipment in the world at the nicest venues in the world and with receptive audiences every night.”