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When Gregg Philbin arrived on the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign campus in the fall of 1965, he was just another student captivated by the sudden cultural earthquake of the British Invasion. Within a few short years, he would go from tossing pizza dough on Green Street to holding down the bottom end for REO Speedwagon as the band rose from local frat favorites to major-label recording artists.
Looking back on those formative years, Philbin—who graduated with the Class of 1969 and anchored REO on bass through 1977—remembers a music scene that was as intensely competitive as it was fertile.
“The thing that always amazed our whole band was how competitive and how good the music was in Champaign,” Philbin recalls. “I have been all over the country, and perhaps the only music scenes that were on a higher level were, of course, Nashville and Austin. Champaign has always produced incredible musicians.”
The Campus Proving Grounds
Before he ever plugged in an amplifier, Philbin spent his freshman year studying the campus circuit as a devoted fan. The live music economy in Champaign-Urbana was anchored by a dominant triad of clubs: the Brown Jug on Sixth Street, the Red Lion Inn at Third and Green, and Chances R in downtown Champaign.
The caliber of regional talent cycling through those rooms was staggering. Philbin remembers watching groups like The Regiment and the One-Eyed Jacks, whose dynamic singer, Budd Carr, would later become an acclaimed Hollywood music supervisor on films such as Platoon, Wall Street, and Rock Star.
Out-of-town acts were equally formidable. St. Louis group Blue featured a 15-year-old keyboard prodigy named Michael McDonald, who, as Philbin notes, “amazingly sounded exactly like he does today.” Meanwhile, Chicago imports The Exceptions regularly tore up Chances R behind the vocals and bass playing of a young Peter Cetera, just before he helped launch the band Chicago.
Seeking closer proximity to the players, Philbin took a job making pizzas at the Red Lion Inn during his freshman year. That kitchen gig led to a fateful encounter with drummer Ralph Harris.
“It was at the end of the school year that he made me an offer that would change my life,” Philbin says. “He told me that their bass player was graduating and asked me if I was interested in replacing him.”
When Philbin confessed that his only musical background was playing saxophone, Harris brushed it off, telling him the guitar player could teach him bass over the summer. Following a trip to Chicago’s Old Town district to buy matching mod suits, the group debuted in the fall as L.C. Borden’s Condensed Orchestra, immediately landing the coveted house gig at the Red Lion alongside steady bookings across the Illinois Greek system and regional college campuses.
Joining the Speedwagon
By the end of his sophomore year, Philbin’s playing caught the ear of another local group on the rise. Terry Luttrell, the dynamic frontman for REO Speedwagon, approached him with a familiar pitch: REO’s bassist was graduating, and they needed a replacement.
Philbin made the leap, spending the summer between his sophomore and junior years woodshedding with the band in Champaign. But the defining catalyst for REO’s professional ascent occurred when they signed with a nascent campus booking agency named Blytham Ltd.
Run by Illinois student Irving Azoff alongside Bob Nutt and John Baruck, Blytham was transforming regional artist representation into an aggressive, high-stakes enterprise.
“They were incredibly aggressive and used a ‘take no prisoners’ approach to booking anyone on their roster,” Philbin explains. “They changed the Champaign music scene forever by getting the ‘big three’ clubs to get into bidding wars for whomever they wanted, thereby driving prices up and, in the process, the bands were happy and they began to make a lot of money.”
The financial rewards transformed local rock from a weekend diversion into a lucrative career. Top acts began making enough money to justify major investments; Philbin remembers Nutt driving a Mercedes while Azoff navigated campus in a Jaguar XKE.
The live circuit operated on a ruthless weekly schedule. Bands started on Wednesday nights, battling for Thursday slots, with the highest-drawing groups earning the lucrative weekend shows. Blytham pitted its powerhouse roster—including REO Speedwagon, The Finchley Boys, Head East, Feather Train, The Guild, The Esquires, and Nickel Bag—against one another before routing them onto a regional touring grid that stretched from Madison, Wisconsin, down to Paducah, Kentucky.
[ The Blytham Circuit ]
│
┌───────────────┼───────────────┐
▼ ▼ ▼
Chances R Red Lion Inn Brown Jug
│ (Downtown) │ (Campustown) │ (Campustown)
└───────────────┼───────────────┘
│
▼
[ Regional Expansion ]
Madison ─── UIUC ─── Paducah
Peoria Connections & The Political Pulse
As REO’s local profile exploded, so did their creative network. When guitarist Gary Richrath joined from East Peoria, he brought a friendship with fellow Peoria singer-songwriter Dan Fogelberg.
“Dan and Gary played in competing bands in Peoria, and it wasn’t long until REO started using Dan on occasion to open for us,” Philbin says. “Generally, Dan would start with his solo set for five or six songs, and then we would back him up for the remainder of his set.”
Beyond the smoky confines of the taverns, the turbulent political climate of the late 1960s provided an entirely different platform. In support of the anti-war movement, REO played free Friday afternoon concerts on the Main Quad behind the Illini Union. That campus visibility directly led to an invitation to perform for the 1969 Moratorium to End the War in Vietnam at Chicago’s Daley Plaza, playing in front of an estimated crowd of 50,000.
The Big Pond & That Night with The Eagles
After signing a major contract with Columbia/Epic Records and releasing their 1971 debut album, REO Speedwagon’s horizon expanded far beyond the cornfields. Irving Azoff relocated to Los Angeles to establish Front Line Management, setting his sights on industry dominance.
“I’ll never forget a phone call I received from Irving a week after he started working with a mid-sized agency,” Philbin remembers. “He told me that the business was being run by idiots, and that he was going to take the town over.”
REO soon followed Azoff out west, finding themselves sharing stadium and arena stages with acts like Aerosmith, the Doobie Brothers, Fleetwood Mac, and Joe Walsh. Yet, no matter how large the venues became, the pull of their old stomping grounds remained strong.
One evening, while in Champaign, Philbin and his bandmates attended an Assembly Hall concert where a young country-rock outfit touring behind On the Border—The Eagles—was opening for the Marshall Tucker Band.
“Their reception at the Assembly Hall was lukewarm at best,” Philbin recalls. REO knew the band through Azoff’s management stable and had plans to jam across town later that night:
“Lonnie and the Lugnutz were playing the Red Lion that night and we had planned to play a set, so we talked The Eagles into playing a set at the Red Lion Inn. Nobody could believe that they were going to play [there], but they absolutely killed it, as did we. That was the night The Eagles played the Red Lion Inn.”
An Enduring Legacy
Philbin’s tenure with REO Speedwagon bridged the crucial gap between the band’s bar-room origins and their emergence as arena headliners, laying the groundwork for the multi-platinum triumphs of the 1980s.
Though decades have passed since he loaded his bass gear out of the back doors on Green Street, his assessment of that golden era remains unwavering.
“In my opinion, the late ’60s and the ’70s were the halcyon days for music,” Philbin says, “and it is my sincere hope that somehow there are still musicians carrying the torch.”
Related Reading: For a deeper look at the wider campus music ecosystem—including Starcastle’s symphonic prog rise, Dan Fogelberg’s coffeehouse roots, and the full history of the “Big Three” clubs—check out the comprehensive overview, The Red Lion and the Rock Incubator: How 1970s Champaign-Urbana Built the Blueprint for Arena Rock.