Central Illinois’ classic rock favorite sons perform here Feb. 25

“When I look down the tour itinerary and see towns like Springfield and Champaign, the word that immediately comes to mind is ‘home,’ ” says REO Speedwagon’s lead singer Kevin Cronin, 59, with an audible lump in his throat. “I know that probably seems hackneyed but it’s absolutely, 100 percent, true. The Beatles had the Cavern Club in Liverpool, Bruce Springsteen has Asbury Park and we have Rockford, Springfield, Bloomington....”

Although REO was formed in Champaign- Urbana in 1967, Evanston native Cronin didn’t join the band full-time until 1976, four years before the chart-dominating mega-success of the Hi Infidelity LP and its inescapable number one hit single “Keep On Loving You.” That period saw the band – which is playing at the Prairie Capital Convention Center on Sunday, Feb. 28 – touring tirelessly and performing in venues large and small throughout central Illinois, building a dedicated following that allowed this local band to truly make good.

“Playing in central Illinois is definitely a different experience from playing on the East Coast or overseas, for example,” says Cronin. “Everywhere else there’s this sense of a little bit of challenge from the crowd, kind of a ‘show us what you got’ attitude. But coming back to Illinois, you just know it’s going to be a fun show. There are people in the audience who remember you from, you know, 35 years ago or more, and they are totally rooting for you in a way that just isn’t possible in those other places. It’s really the difference between a home game and an away game. You can have a good game in another town, but there’s nothing like that hometown crowd who have known you their whole lives.”

Of course things were not always this way. “I remember REO playing at the Christian County fairgrounds in Taylorville, sometime in