Cheap Trick at Fallsview Casino - Concert Photos

I was but a wee wee lad when landmark Cheap Trick albums like In Color, Heaven Tonight, Cheap Trick at Budokan and Dream Police came out. That didn’t stop them from having a tremendous impact on the foundations of my musical taste. Their power pop tunes taught me that you can be heavy and poppy with crunchy guitars pounding drums and catchy hooks all at the same time. It was a sound that I took as an influence along with bands like KISS and Hüsker Dü when I started writing my own music.

This show at Fallsview Casino marked my first time seeing the band live. It was great to see the band on stage with almost all the original members (guitarist Rick Nielsen's son Daxx held down the drums in Bun E. Carlos' absence) and to hear several classic tunes live. I was left with one question - Why the covers? I know that the band made several of these covers their own and made them Cheap Trick hits, but in my little mind, Cheap Trick is a band with way more than a set worth of perfect original tunes. Personally, I would have liked to hear a fistful more of them instead of the covers.

Here's the setlist from this show:
"Hello There"
"Big Eyes"
"California Man"
"On Top of the World"
"Need Your Love"
"Magical Mystery Tour"
"Ain't That A Shame"
"Don't Be Cruel"
"Baby Loves to Rock"
"Waitin' for the Man"
"Voices"
"I Want You to Want Me"
"Dream Police"

Encore
"Never Had A Lot to Lose"
"Surrender"
"Goodnight"

Here are the biggest hits that I loved hearing live:

"I Want You to Want Me"

"Dream Police"

"Surrender"

Frightened Rabbit covers Cheap Trick

I like Frightened Rabbit. I've posted their tunes and went to their show with Wintersleep at The Phoenix Concert Theatre.

I like Cheap Trick. I've played "I Want You To Want Me" live with a band, I've featured Bob Mould's cover of "Downed" and I've posted about my love of power pop.

The AV Club does their cool covers thing AV Undercover and they had Frightened Rabbit in again. This time they chose Cheap Trick's "Surrender" as their cover. They did a great job of staying faithful to the song while definitely making it their own. Listen below.

Frightened Rabbit covers Cheap Trick

Bob Mould covers Cheap Trick

Here's a video of Bob Mould covering Cheap Trick in Chicago. The video features Bob and the band doing "Downed" followed by the Husker Du classic "Celebrated Summer". When I caught Mark Kozelek a while back, he performed his cover of "Celebrated Summer". Ever so slightly different from Bob's/Husker's version.

And I just saw this great video of Bob and the band rockin' out on "The Descent".

Loud Pop

In the early days of my old band, we tried to coin a name for the kind of music we played.  We knew we had (hopefully) catchy melodies complimented by loud guitars.  I came up with "Loud Pop" to describe the sound but the other guys felt it might be taken too literally, as in the sound of a loud pop.  Pop!

In hindsight, the term I was probably looking for was Power Pop.  And what a great genre it is.  So much of my favourite music can be summed up by this term.  Here are some great examples of the genre.  Mostly old and some new.

I let the "labels" on the post be my limiting factor, which only means one thing: this won't be the last loud pop post.

Jellyfish "The King is Half Undressed"


Jellyfish "That is Why"


Jellyfish "The Ghost at # 1"


Jellyfish "New Mistake"


Cheap Trick "Dream Police"


Cheap Trick "Reach Out"


Badfinger "No Matter What"


Big Star "When My Baby's Beside Me"


Big Star "September Gurls"


The Cars "Let's Go"


Nick Lowe "Cruel to be Kind"


The Knack "My Sharona"


The Romantics "What I Like About You"


The Vapors "Turning Japanese"


The Smithereens "A Girl Like You"


Material Issue "Kim the Waitress"


The Pursuit of Happiness "When the Sky Comes Falling Down"


The Pursuit of Happiness "Beautiful White"


Odds "Love is the Subject"


Odds "It Falls Apart"


Squeeze "Pulling Mussels (from the Shell)"


Sugar "Gee Angel"


Sugar "Believe What You're Saying"


Sugar "A Good Idea"


Sugar "If I Can't Change Your Mind"


Bob Mould "See A Little Light"


Bob Mould "Circles"