One of the hottest tours of the year has been The Beach Boys’ summer trek, for which long-estranged leader and main songwriter Brian Wilson reunited with the group. Chicago is a band that is in a similar situation to The Beach Boys: years ago, their famous frontman Peter Cetera, who sang some of their biggest hits, including “Just You ‘N’ Me,” “If You Leave Me Now,” “Baby What A Big Surprise” and “Hard To Say I’m Sorry,” left the band to go solo.

The Chicago business is still a healthy one. Like The Beach Boys, they tour every year, playing to large crowds. But also like The Beach Boys, reuniting with their ex-frontman would be a huge event that would get the band more media attention than they’ve had in years, and would probably be a big enough deal to lead to a tour headlining the venues where they usually split the bill (they just wrapped up an amphitheater tour with The Doobie Brothers, and have toured frequently with Earth, Wind & Fire in recent years).

It turns out that founding member, keyboardist-singer Robert Lamm (he sings “Beginnings” and “Does Anybody Really Know What Time It Is?”) recently went out for coffee with Peter Cetera. But it just doesn’t look likely that there will be a reunion anytime soon: Cetera simply doesn’t want to commit to the band’s aggressive touring schedule.

Cetera seems to tour at a much more leisurely pace than his former band: he currently has four upcoming tour dates scheduled, see his website for details. Chicago, meanwhile, has dates scheduled through November.

– Brian Ives, CBS Local

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