116 3rd St SE
Cedar Rapids, Iowa 52401
REVIEW: Smallish crowd enjoys impressive Loverboy, Arch Allies show
Rob Cline
Jun. 20, 2011 7:35 am
The crowd was somewhat small for the Freedom Festival's Classic Rock Concert Night on Saturday evening on the Kirkwood Community College Campus. The folks who were there, however, loved them some Loverboy.
Arch Allies, a band that covers songs by Styx, REO Speedwagon and Journey, warmed up the crowd with an impressive 90-minute set of favorites. The band is exceptionally skilled at re-creating the sounds of the bands it covers.
While the wigs and costume changes are perhaps a bit silly, they are able musicians with strong vocal talent, especially in the case of lead singer Gabe Jacobs, but also from the keyboardist and guitarist who sing harmony. A nicely done a cappella introduction to Journey's “Lights” highlighted their vocal gifts. The band performed at Balloon Glow during the Freedom Festival last year, and the band didn't bring anything new to this performance, but what it does, it does well.
Loverboy - made up entirely of original members except for the bassist - took the stage with the band's last significant hit, “Notorious” from the 1987 album “Wildside.” The balance was off early in the set, burying the vocals of lead singer Mike Reno. That problem persisted through the second number; with my somewhat limited knowledge of the Loverboy oeuvre, I wasn't able to decipher just what song the group was performing.
Over the next three songs - “Lady of the '80s,” “Take Me to the Top,” and “It's Your Life” - the band found its groove and the tech folks found the balance. The first true highlight of the set followed: a strong performance of the power ballad “This Could Be the Night” that demonstrated that Reno's voice is in good shape.
From there, the band had the crowd up and excited. Driven by the energetic and densely packed drumming of Matt Frenette, the group never sounded as if it was just going through the motions on old material it has performed for 30 years. There's a palpable energy to the playing that can't simply be attributed to the cranked up speakers.
The band wrapped up the pre-encore set with its greatest contribution to popular culture, 1981's “Working for the Weekend.” The song couldn't have sounded better.
Loverboy retook the stage to perform the new single “Heartbreaker,” and sent the crowd home with its biggest chart hit, 1985's “Lovin' Every Minute of It.” That would be a fair description of the crowd's reaction.