News that Cheap Trick is the keynote band on the great bike ride across Iowa this July got me thinking about Rockford as both a place and an idea.
It’s easy to get the wrong idea about Rockford. Drive East State Street to downtown and Rockford seems like one long strip mall, as one Chicago Sun-Times columnist wrote. Saying “East State Street is Rockford” is like saying Cheap Trick is “The Flame,” forgetting about “Dream Police” or “Surrender” or even “She’s Tight.”
I didn’t get to Rockford until my 30s and I don’t live in the city proper; but Rockford is my closest metropolitan area and I’m drawn to it constantly. As far as I can tell, Rockford’s only problem is lack of self-esteem brought on by years of bad press.
Rockford has a daily newspaper (unlike some larger cities like Birmingham or New Orleans). It has all the cafes, bars and breweries needed to establish a routine; restaurants run by people cooking, not running business empires; we even have nice weather a couple of months a year.
Which makes Cheap Trick the perfect band to embody that Rockford aesthetic, one whose cri du coeur boasts not of machismo or prowess but that, in the end, everyone is all right.
We’re all “all right” in Rockford; it should be the town slogan and I’ll happily catch smiles on Whitman Bridge.
I'm Dan Libman and that's my perspective.
