SARTS The Michigan Daily Saturday, March 28, 1981 Page 5 .a REQ oors the crowd By TAMMY REISS After over a decade of persistent touring and the release of almost a dozen albums, REO has finally obtained not only the national popularity it has pur- sued for so long, but also a more honest approach to their music. REO Speedwagon entertained a sellout crowd at Crisler Arena Thursday night with selections from their newest album Hi-Infidelity; currently No. 1 on the Billboard charts, as well as material from previous releases. Most important, however, was the sincerity and confidence in their performance. FRONTMAN FOR the group, Kevin Cronin, thanked the Michigan audience for keeping the band alive over the years. He never hesitated to stop the show to introduce each song with a short story as to how the tune came about - very effectively bringing the audience closer to the performance on stage. REO opened the show with "Don't Let Him Go" from Hi-Infidelity. As the group moved into "Like You Do" and "Keep Pushin"' from the 1977 live album You Get What You Play For, Cronin grabbed the audience with his showmanship. REO's members have gotten older over the years, but their audience certainly ha primarily high-school age or slight their feet when the band hit the be "Tough Guys," the first single featuring ear-piercing guitar riffs f and founder of the group, Gary Rich THE BAND slowed it's heavy pa Me To Fly" and "Take It On The1 On Loving You," probably the mo the group has ever done, Croni keyboard. But the lull was short lived, as keyboards and Richrath spurred t along on "Roll With The Changes took over a confident lead on1 "Flying Turkey Trot," dedicatedt mer airplane pilot. After "Say You Love Me or Say "Back on the Road Again", a tune written and sung by bassist Bruce it's regular set on a high note "Ridin' the Storm Out." CRONIN DEMONSTRATED his at risler sn't. The crowd, with scat-like crooning on "157 Riverside Avenue," tly older, came to the band's first encore tune. But the band wasn't ginning strains of through yet, as chants of 'R-E-O" brought them off Hi-Infidelity, back for a second encore featuring the classic rom lead guitarist "Golden Country" and the upbeat "Shakin' It Loose hrath. Tonight." ce for "Time For REO played a total of seventeen songs, demon- Run." For "Keep strating that they are a band that realizes and ap- st emotional tune preciates how they got where they are-no matter n took over the how long it took to get there. Warm-up for REO was 707. The sole high-point of Cronin stayed on their set was a rendition of their only hit to date, "I the crowd to sing Could Be Good For You". s." Richrath then The band, which originated around Livonia and the instrumental migrated to the West Coast in search of a record con- to the band's for- tract, had a very rough sound to their music... not to mention trivial, unoriginal material and guitar y Goodnight" and solos that sounded something like the guy next door from Nine Lives practicing. Hall, REO ended with the popular Basically, 707 lacked a commanding approach to their performance. Their only worth was in demon- strating faults, which more than highlighted REO's vocal versatility strengths. REO's lead singer, Kevin Cronin, does his infamous pouty-Shirley Temple imitation for the Crisler crowd Thursday night. e Steppenwoif glad to get a Second Chance the ann arbor film coopertive By FRED SCHILL America! Where are you now? Don't you care about your sons and daughters? "Some songs, as they get older, just et older. Some songs get truer," John Way told the swaying, ecstatic mob at Second Chance Thursday night. And then came the hammerchords of "Mon- ster," perhaps the finest song Steppen- wolf ever recorded It was rapture. The band pounded the chords home with merciless zeal, each beat energized with jackhammer force, as the aged amongst us roared the lyrics in unison. It sounded like a boast, but Kay was right; the words *ang truer than history itself, as visions of Ronald Reagan danced apocalyp- tically in our heads. IF POLITICAL songs are passe, then so was this orie. But Kay couldn't have found a more endearing way to finish the show, which is why he saved the song for the second and final encore. It ended a show that started out as a whimper with a scream of outrage. Steppenwolf in its historical sense has survived the times remarkably well. Only Kay remains from the original. band, but he wrote and sang all of the songs anyway, so who cares? His new band pummels the ear with intense,. ripping rock that hits the ground run- ning, and Kay's vocals have retained their ratchety grip. KAY IS A MAN OF interes±ing con- trasts; a tall, sinewy, rough-hewn man endowed with razor-strap vocals gritty in their virility, Kay comes across as a man who'd walk a mile for a Camel. It was an image he exploited for "Five Finger Discount," dedicated "to some folks who had the balls to call them- selves Steppenwolf." (By the way, Kay informed us that "they've been put out of their misery.") His voice is one of harsh asser- tiveness, the unyielding determination that made "Born to Be Wild" the an- them of an angry generation. Thirteen years later, singing to a generation rendered immobile by the rigor mortis of passivity, Kay remains on edge. The band's version of this immortal anthem was thunderous, inflammatory in its searing urgency, and still relevant to the hysterical masses clogged shoulder-to-shoulder on the dancefloor. For a man with such a grainy per- sona, though, Kay sprinkles his songs with a surprising quantity of sentimen- tality which is occasionally fatal. Many of the newer tunes were burdened with an overdose of Tragedy; "A Hot Night in a Cold Town" concerned itself with runaways and the godawful tawdriness of it all, while Hoyt ("Joy to the World") Axton's "Snowblind Friend" again warned us of the dangers of drugs. Ye heroin addicts, take heed. THE IMAGERY THAT blessed Step- penwolf's best work was absent from most of the newer tunes, and the best ones were matter-of-fact declarations like "Business is Business" ("No mat- ter how old/If you don't pay your bills/You freeze in the cold") and "Every Man for Himself." The latter would serve as a fitting anthem for the new breed of rockers. None of the new songs conjured up the vivid visions of older tunes, however. "Magic Carpet Ride" stom- ped rambunctiously, with Kay providing a slide guitar solo that un- coiled in long, tentative strides, and it still sounds seductively wild. "The Pusher," saved for the first encore, drove Kay's anti-drug message home with guitar-slinging force as people ironically lit up their contraband. The show was exhilirating and almost communal after "Magic Carpet Ride," which came two-thirds of the way into the show proper, but even the battering musical arrangements couldn't ram the newer songs down. They were inspired, they were ap- preciated, but Steppenwolf was not vin- dicated by their Thursday night show. Sadly, most of their life breathes through the nd stuff TONIGHT TONIGHT presents THE WARRIORS 7:44O& 10:20-MLB 4 THE W ILD ONE 8:40-MLB 4 $2 SINGLE FEATURE $3 DOUBLE FEATURE A bittersweet 'Sugar-mouth Sam' By ADRIENNE LYONS Sugar-mouth Sam Don't Dance No More could have been one more in a string of plays that focus on that tired, stereotyped theme of a black man who walks out on his partner and then returns, full of remorse and begging for forgiveness. Sugar-mouth Sam Don't Dance No More By Don Evans '' The Stage Company Canterbury Loft March 26-29 Verda................... Catrina Ganey Sam......................Charles Jackson Directed by Robert Moses Lighting designed by Ron Ta/or Set designed by Robert Moses Produced by James Danek and William Sharpe The ending was as predictable as The Wizard of Oz. Not that predictability is always bad, of course; sometimes it can be quite comforting, allowing the audience to focus on other areas such as characterization. But Sugar-mouth just stresses so heavily the fact that the two-person cast is poor, black, and still trying to find a niche in the world that it nearly loses the two characters it seeks to create and develop. Here the play is saved by the performances of Catrina Ganey as Verda, and Charles Jackson, as Sugar-mouth Sam. They portray lovers kept apart both by Sam's wife and his own wanderlust. GANEY, in particular, turned in an excellent performance as the lower class black woman struggling to sur- vive, who is surprised one night by the return of her lover, Sam. Her perfor- mance is flawed only by the level of her voice, which was several decibels above normal. In an average theater, most actors find it necessary to project their voices. In the confines of Canter- bury Loft Thursday night, where Sugar- mouth was staged, that loudness was hardly necessary. The narrow confines of the Loft also seems to have inhibited director Robert Moses' staging somewhat. The stage is simply too small to permit much movement, and thanks to Moses' direc- tion, the action often stressed the triteness of Don Evans' script. The second act opens with Verda and Sam in bed after, we assume, having just made love. Verda kisses Sam, gets out of bed, and lights up a cigarette. The symbolismg was so obvious that it could have been a comedy sketch from Saturday Night Live. ADMITTEDLY, this kind of charac- terization is difficult for anyone. Simply saying lines without any kind of accom- panying movement indicates, if nothing else, a lack of motivation. But that is hardly Ganey's problem. A University Theater Department student and veteran actress, Ganey easily conveyed her points: She wanted to take Sam back, but was afraid to, fearing that Sam would leave her. A simple point, made difficult. Another scene, soon after the reunion, has Verda and Sam trying to cope with occasional bouts of awkwar- dness together after their one-year separation. Verda tries to find out non- chantly why Sam left her in the first place. Despite her efforts to be casual, however, her nervousness shines forth through stiff, forced actions. VERDA HERE is attempting to fix supper for herself and Sam. But Moses has her awkwardly folding and re- folding napkins and arranging and re- arranging the dishes on the table, in an obvious attempt to show the audience that she is really having difficulty being casual. Moses' staging is here again distrac- ting. If Sam can't recognize Verda's problems, the audience certainly does. It would be easier to sympathize with the character if her actions weren't quite so forced. A Moving Stogy of Love in Action The Movie BROTH ER SUN, SISTERMOON A Film on the Life of St. Francis of Assisi $Sturday, March 28th-6:30 P.M. First United Methodist Church 209 Washtenaw Ave.