RIP: Gary Richrath - REO Speedwagon

[splinter7]

Just read that Richrath died over the weekend at 66.

Was not really a fan but I certainly did end up appreciating a number of REO's hits and (like most people alive in 1981) had a copy of the obligatory Hi Infidelity.

I remember my first time running a truss light as local concert hand. It happened at an REO concert. I climbed up the rope ladder & shimmed over the truss. Hit my marks all night! Near the end of the concert, the Lighting Director comes on the com-set and announces that the truss operators should be prepared for a pyrotecnic blast during the encore.

Did I mention that at that point in time I was only familiar with the Infidelity album? I was about to be introduced to "Ridin' The Storm Out" - up close & personal!

The band is coming back for an encore & this BLARING klaxon like siren starts going off over the loudspeakers. The LD saying something like "Que Pyro" and then VROOOOM - This massive fireball erupts from the stage - The heat wave hits and the concussion of the blast sends the truss swinging! :yikes
Here I am - 25 feet over the front of the stage swinging, my eyebrows are singed and the LD is screaming that the truss lights need to lock down and keep on their marks.

---Greg

 

[Clint Eastwood]

They had a lot of songs I liked...RIP Gary

 

[kap'n krunch]

My fave is the "You can tune a piano..." LP..they were very good...I always called him Gary "Riff Raff", because , to me , all his solos sounded the same....mostly.. had the great chance of seeing them in the Coliseo Roberto Clemente in San Juan in 1985 ..FIRST ROW...curious that we were ALL Seating down and they would not LET ANYONE STAND UP..weird... GREAT CONCERT BTW...my first LP from them was the Best of /Live... then I got the Tuna FIsh and the Hi Infidelity , etc ...still got it on LP...I also got the "You get what you play for" a few years ago.....

RIP Gary!

(man, they are dropping like flies!!!!...scary)

 

[GOS]

Yeah, sad news...and for those of you who wonder...yep...REO is from Champaign, Illinois...only 29 miles from my home....and I grew up in the area. Back in the day, when I was underage....we could get into the local college bars and REO used to play at them....

The Thuderbird brings back some vague memories....so yeah. I saw them before they hit it big...and I saw them in Peoria, IL during the Hi Infidelity tour....man they were really a polished band by that time....so popular in the midwest as you might imagine.

 

[paligap]

I saw REO with Focus and Joe Walsh around 1975. Great concert; REO was still a rock band at the time.

 

[Snood]

I saw REO with Focus and Joe Walsh around 1975. Great concert; REO was still a rock band at the time.

Oh Wow you have Snood beat - Saw them at their so called Peak - Hi Infidelity tour thinking 1981..........was impressed with the Gary. Was sorry to see him and REO split up...........heard it wasn't pretty. Snood Like their earlier pre HiInfidelity stuff much better. RIP Gary

 

[onthewall2983]

Didn't he come back?

 

[splinter7]

think that was just for a one off charity concert a few years ago.

from what I read, Kevin Cronin (sp?) joined the band for one album in the early seventies - left due "internal conflicts" and rejoined 3 years later.

 

[knifeman]

REO was the first "name" band I ever saw. They opened for KISS in October of 1975 in Agriculture Hall, Allentown, PA.; an acoustically brutal venue. But it was my first real concert and I couldn't have cared less. What a show!

 

[GOS]

REO was the first "name" band I ever saw. They opened for KISS in October of 1975 in Agriculture Hall, Allentown, PA.; an acoustically brutal venue. But it was my first real concert and I couldn't have cared less. What a show!

Sounds like The Assembly Hal in Champaign, IL...cool place, horrible acoustics.


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