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IDOLIN’ YOUR SPEEDWAGON
Michelle Hansen, a senior communication major from Fort
Collins, Colo., and SUU’s Idol, sings with Kevin
Cronin, lead vocals and rhythm gutarist for REO Speedwagon,
Friday night.
ERIN MADSON / UNIVERSITY JOURNAL
Music Man
REO Speedwagon played Friday
as part of Homecoming activities
By PETE SORENSON
UNIVERSITY JOURNAL
The hit 80’s band REO Speedwagon performed Friday
night in the Centrum Arena, the crowning event of Homecoming
week.
Kevin Cronin and the boys of REO opened with “Riding
the Storm Out,” and then going right into “Music
Man.”
“Cedar City, Utah, check yourselves out,”
Cronin said to the crowd. “Being on this stage,
I feel young and strong. I feel like I’m among friends
here in Cedar City tonight.”
The band then sang “Keep Pushing On” before
Cronin recounted a story of being in a grocery store in
southern California and running into Heather Locklear
in the produce section.
The story concluded with sexual innuendos about melons
and a banana.
“All right, it’s nice to be back on the road,”
Cronin said in referrence to the band’s recent break.
“When we’re on the stage, we give it all we’ve
got.”
Despite the fact this band isn’t getting any younger,
it still manages to put on a decent show, especially with
Cronin as lead vocalist/songwriter.
Even though Cronin lacks the composure and luster that
Steve
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Tyler and Mick Jaggar possess, he’s
still an enormous stage presence, and he remains the driving
force behind REO.
In an interview after the concert, Cronin said performing
in a smaller venue, such as the Centrum Areana, is nothing
new to the band.
“In the early days, we would do 250-300 shows a year,”
Cronin said. “We played every small town in America.
People in smaller towns are usually really receptive; everyone
here was into it tonight.”
The band pleased the crowd by singing some songs from its
High Fidelity album, including two of the band’s most
recognizable hits,“Keep On Loving You” and “I
Heard it From a Friend.”
“I wish we could settle down here in Cedar City and
party until the sun comes up,” Cronin said.
Mindy Benson, director of student activities, said the concert
sold around 2,500 tickets, and said that is more tickets
than the last three concerts have sold.
“It was a great mix of students and
people from the community, and that was the goal of this
concert,” Benson said. “The crowds reaction
was the best I’ve ever seen. There was good energy
between the crowd and the band, I think it was good for
both sides.”
For most of the concert the audience was on its feet and
only sat down when the band played one of its songs that
isn’t as well known as some of its others.
As difficult as life on the road is, Cronin said his energy
stems from his love of music, and by staying in shape.
“I’m still lovin’ it,” Cronin said.
“And I take care of myself by exercising and by getting
enough sleep.”
While the band was singing “Roll With The Changes,”
Michelle Hansen, who was announced as the winner of the
SUU Idol contest before the concert, got on stage and sang
with the band for a few minutes.
Although the concert wasn’t a sell-out, Cronin said
the Centrum Arena felt full to him.
“It doesn’t matter how full the room is, or
even how big the room is,” Cronin said. “It’s
the amount of energy from the audience that makes the show,
and I try to get as personal as I can with a large group
of people. Sometimes,
like tonight, it works.”
The band recieved its largest response when it sang their
most famous song “I Can’t Fight This Feeling
Anymore.”
The band then performed some of its more recent songs, and
ended the show with “Gloria.”
“Thanks everybody, we love you Cedar City, we always
have and we always will,” Cronin said before leaving
the stage.
Overall, it was a good concert, especially considering the
$15 ticket got you into the concert and into the Homecoming
dance that followed the concert.
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Grocery prices
above average
By JACKIE ANDRUS
UNIVERSITY JOURNAL
While the cost of living in Cedar City is 90.6 percent of
the national average, the price of groceries is 112.7 percent
of the national average.
Groceries in Cedar City are slightly below St. George’s
113.5 percent but higher than Logan’s 102.2 percent and
higher still than some metropolitan areas, which includes Los
Angeles and Phoenix.
The high price of food worries Alan Hamlin, professor of management,
who conducts the cost of living survey four times a year in
both Cedar City and St. George for the American Chamber of Commerce
Researchers Association.
“Food is a huge necessity and a big fraction of the average
family’s budget,” Hamlin said. “It worries
me when people make low wages and food is so high in Cedar City.”
In addition, Utah is one of only a few states that have an added
sales tax on food, a tax that would make Cedar City’s
average cost of groceries nearly 6 percent higher than the current
average, Hamlin said.
The ACCRA survey looks at 27 food and non-food products used
by the average family and compares the average from those prices
to averages from other cities across the nation.
Hamlin priced an array of items specified by ACCRA at Lins,
Albertson’s, and Smith’s, Cedar City’s three
grocery stores. ACCRA sets the parameters for the nationwide
survey by determining the specific brands and sizes of goods
in addition to the stores whose products are priced. All the
items have to be priced within the three days specified by ACCRA.
The survey gets the prices of items from a half gallon of milk
to dish soap and even baby food. Items at each of the stores
were within 1 to 2 percent of each other, Hamlin said.
“There are some exceptions in pricing,” Hamlin said.
“For example, Lins might be cheaper for vegetables one
week than the other stores. The stores seem to be very aware
of their pricing and seem to price off each other.”
The three grocery stores in Cedar City are more than the average
number for Cedar City’s
population, a fact that Hamlin said should drive up competition
but hasn’t.
“The rule of thumb is that there is one grocery store
for every 10,000 people,” Hamlin said. “The thought
was when Smith’s came, it would drive down prices and
it hasn’t. Usually when there’s more suppliers,
competing prices tend to fall.”
Lins, Albertson’s, and Smith’s store managers would
not comment on the price of groceries in Cedar City other than
to say the prices are set regionally by each stores’ headquarter
offices.
Wal-Mart Supercenter is 27 percent cheaper on the average for
groceries than Cedar City’s other three grocery stores.
Hamlin said ACCRA does not figure in supercenter stores like
Wal-Mart
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Kara Pitts, a sophmore elementary education major
from Chicago, and Ashley Stabros, a freshman undeclared
major from New Harmony, check out ripe produce at a local
grocery store in Cedar City.
ELIZABETH MILLER / UNIVERSITY JOURNAL |
or Big Kmart because they are considered discount rather than
grocery stores. The average family does not shop at these stores
for their food.
Hamlin did, however, price the same items at Cedar City’s
Wal-Mart Supercenter and found the discount store to be significantly
lower than the other grocery stores.
“You’d expect it to be 10 to 15 percent cheaper,
but it’s a lot more,” Hamlin said. “So it
raises the question of why there is such a gap in Wal-Mart prices.”
Wal-Mart Supercenter store manager Norm Chandler said Wal-Mart’s
pricing is national.
“You’d find the same prices from Arkansas to Cedar
City to Alaska,” Chandler said. “Wal-Mart has the
same prices all over the country and we also do ad match. We’ll
match ad prices five percent below the competition.”
Hamlin said he has speculated on the reason that Cedar City
is still high above the national average for groceries but said
he cannot come up with justification for the higher prices.
“It could be transportation and getting the goods here
from the coast,” Hamlin said. “But then again isolated
places like Yuma are cheaper than us. It’s not a metropolitan
area and they have to transport everything in. I honestly don’t
have the answer to why it is like this. All I can do is speculate.”
Whatever the reasons, Hamlin said the pricing effects are hard
on families and college students alike.
“What does it do for recruiting when prices are so much
higher down here than Logan?” Hamlin said. “That
could be a new recruiting idea for Logan, too. The could say,
‘Come up here because it’s cheaper to buy groceries.’
”
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