The central Illinois music scene (the ostensible subject of my magazine piece this week) was amazingly fecund in the 1970s, and worthy of a self-indulgent blog post all its own. The alpha and omega of this time and place was REO Speedwagon, and Gary Richrath enjoyed an intensely loyal following around town even before he joined REO. Here’s a clip of a live performance of 157 Riverside Avenue, which may enjoy renewed popularity in places like Colorado with the advent of legalized marijuana.

Cheap Trick is not a Peoria band, strictly speaking—the 100 miles that separate Rockford and Peoria represent a chasm to any central Illinoisan—but the band toured relentlessly in Peoria, Bloomington-Normal and Champaign-Urbana and their success there laid the groundwork for their breakout stardom. Here’s their iconic song Surrender, performed on the Midnight Special in the mid 1970s.