ROCKTOBER: Day 13 - CHEAP TRICK

For those of you that know me, you know that I love Cheap Trick. I don't just love Cheap Trick, I adore them. That notion, alone, may cause many of you to not only shake your heads, but possibly even throw up a little bit in your mouths. The fact of the matter is that Cheap Trick was the band that made me fall in love with music. I've told the story a million times, so I won't go into great details, but I can thank my cassette copy of "In Color", purchased in the bargain bin at Musicland for the low, low price of $2.88, for making me completely and utterly obsessed with music. All it took was the raw energy of "Hello There" for me to be hooked... and the rest is history.

My love for Cheap Trick never did wane much, although I haven't paid a whole lot of attention to their last few albums, with the exception of their interpretation of the entire "Sgt. Peppers" album. They're good... for the most part... but I always go back to the first five albums, which to me are Pop gold.

As for my Cheap Trick live experiences, I have had the privilege of seeing them three times. The first time was in 1985, on the "Standing on the Edge" tour. I used to own a beautiful tour shirt, although it was thrown away unbeknownst to me. It was a deep sea blue, and featured a large 2000-15 on the back.... their clever way of saying 1985. Fast forward to 1997, when Cheap Trick came and played a private party for Sundance. To make their trip worthwhile, they decided to throw a concert at Club DV8 the night before. The beauty of that show was that they focused mainly on the music from their first four albums, and didn't really have anything new to promote, although they did debut a song from their forthcoming (second) eponymous release. Another bonus for that tour was that it was shortly after the return of Tom Petersson to the fold.

My third Cheap Trick experience was in 2008 (as you will notice on the shirt), when they were the first in an all-star line-up, featuring Cheap Trick, Heart and Journey. I hadn't seen the latter two bands, and was excited to see both of them, but all it took was having Cheap Trick on the bill to push me right in line for tickets.