Rockin it Out at the Fourth of July Festivals

The biggest weekend in summer heralds a slew of local festivals. And while the food and carnival games beckon, the big draw for many is the music. Some of the headliners give aging baby boomers and Gen X-ers a chance to relive the heydays of our youth, while others offer a more contemporary viewpoint.

The music schedule for the colossal Naperville Ribfest reads like an Illinois Entertainer newspaper from my college years at NIU. Midwest rockers REO Speedwagon will be riding the storm out Friday evening on the north stage from 8:30 p.m. - 10 p.m. Headed by frontman Kevin Cronin, who turns 60 this fall, REO rocked the house down at many college campuses during the 70s and 80s.

I can still remember how excited I was to trade in some older albums for REO's iconic 1978 release You Can Tune a Piano, But You Can't Tuna Fish, featuring the expansive hit, Roll with the Changes. Check out the linked video to this song, featuring a young Kevin Cronin from 1981. It's amazing to see what 30 years can do to you. Funny how we see the years on others but not so much on ourselves.

The fun and memories continue on Saturday night, when Chicago's own Styx will take you on a midnight ride from 8:30 p.m. to 10 p.m. Absent is former frontman Dennis DeYoung, who split from the band in 1999 when his proclivity for Broadway music clashed with the band's heavy power rock style.

Styx was the very first concert I ever attended, at the tender age of 13, when they were a little known band just making their way up the charts with their hit Lady. Would you believe that they played the auditorium at St. Patrick's High School on the northwest side of Chicago, where this girl had a front row standing view? In a move that would foreshadowed an iconic Springsteen hit, DeYoung actually pulled me onstage to dance with him. Thus began my infatuation with rock and roll boys.

Just down the street at Lisle's Eyes to the Skies festival, you can bust a move with old skool hip hop tribute band Two White Crew on Saturday at 9 p.m. This popular band has got people jumpin' at venues all over the Midwest. Can I admit that many of these songs are regulars on my iPod shuffle that I run to? Just listen to a couple of their renditions, like Ice Ice Baby and Push It, and you'll be shaking your booty too!

The Taste of Oak Brook, held at the Oak Brook Polo fields, will also feature nostalgic cover bands, including 80s tribute bands Sixteen Candles (3:45 p.m. - 5:30 p.m.) and Hi Infidelity (6 p.m. - 7:15 p.m.).  And you can swing, baby, swing to the stylish vocals of Mr. Rat Pack himself, Frank Lamphere. Lamphere evokes memories of smoky nightclubs, glamorous times and romance when he croons the hits of Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Jack Jones and more.

You'll also find a lot of awesome Oak Brook area restaurants at the festival, including Gibsons, The Grotto, India House and more.

So relive those golden years of your youth this weekend. Just don't throw your back out when you're fighting for your right to party.