Speedwagon or Die

I could not have been more excited than when I found out that REO Speedwagon will be performing at Harley Davidson’s Bike Week while we're in Orlando next month.

Fluffy, like a Chia Pet...

Yes, that REO Speedwagon. The REO Speedwagon of camp song fame, before they got outfluffed by Richard Marx.

They were the Depeche Mode of their time. Campers laid in their bunkbeds on rainy days and pined for that cute CIT, to which REO Speedwagon was the soundtrack to their love, their life. Maybe he wasn't paying much attention to you this summer, but next year it would all be different. The braces would be off and you were really going to be a knockout at the opening bonfire ceremony, when the 'Smores couldn't get stuck in the wires anymore.

And now REO's back, performing for their hardest-core fan base - the Hell's Angels. And I just have to be there, because this just makes sense in a totally Clockwork Orange kind of way.

Hey...he looks like my ex!

In the next several weeks, across the highways of America, countless bikes will be migrating their way to their Mecca, just so they can see one of the greatest aging emo bands, in the tradition of Journey and Styx. And after they arrive, we'll all bond over tequila shots and the Biker Babes will have an induction ceremony for me, making me an Honorary Member. My look will be that of Jane Fonda in Klute, with the badass shag hairdo and funky boots. (Donald Sutherland was so hot back then.)

Upon the opening bars of "I Can't Fight This Feeling", my new best friend, Spike - he of the tobacco stained beard and metal cuffs - will confide in me: "This song always makes me think of Patsy, back up at the Devil's Pit roadhouse up in the Carolinas (sniffle)."

And I'll say, "Really? What was she like?"

Spike: "She had the real nice bleached, blond hairdo, all feathered like Farrah. And the vest, man. It was all macrame and shit, with the feathers and the tassles. Yeah, she'd have been a fine piece of ass sitting on the back of my Hog."

Me: "Was this when the band was, like, huge in the late '70s?"

And he'll give me a look before spitting a mouthful of chaw on the ground. "Nah, this was just on the way down here."

He'll take my lace-edged hankie to dab his eyes, while I pat him on the back and say out loud, with feeling, "There's. Got. To. Be. A. Way." Kevin Cronin will then wink and cue the band into a rousing, very special Speedwagon rendition of "Kumbaya", lifting bikers off their feet to raise their lighters into the air. They will rally around Spike, telling him he's got to get back up there and tell Patsy, that he don't wanna sleep, he just wanna keep on lovin' her!

Spike will hop on his Hog and the crowd will part like the Red Sea, cheering and waving him off as he rides off into the sunset, to lay claim to his lady.

Thus proving that pure hearts lie beneath those leather jackets and dark glasses, and that REO Speedwagon is the soundtrack to all of our lives.