You can’t blame Cheap Trick for wanting to celebrate their 25th
\nanniversary by holding one whiz-bang of a concert in their hometown
\nof Rockford, Illinois. You can’t blame them for wanting to blow the
\nroof off of the place (never mind the fact the show was held in a
\npark) with a gaggle of special guests. You can’t blame them for
\nwanting to touch base with every studio album they’ve done.<\/p>\n
You can, however, blame Rick Nielsen and crew for being
\noverambitious – and that’s not necessarily a bad thing. But as the
\ntwo-disc set
\nSilver<\/i> shows, sometimes even a band as great as Cheap Trick
\ncan set the bar a little too high.<\/p>\n
Now, for all of the bloat one could say such a release could
\nhave, I will concede some major points. First, I have no problem
\nwith Nielsen and crew bringing in well-known names to sit in with
\nthe band on a song here and there. It’s nice to hear Billy Corgan,
\nafter contributing guitar on “Just Got Back,” pay impromptu tribute
\nto a band who have not gotten the attention they’ve deserved in
\nrecent years. Likewise, it’s kind of fun to hear Nielsen comment
\nabout Corgan and Slash (who adds guitar to “You’re All Talk”), “The
\nkid can play!”<\/p>\n
Another nice touch is that Cheap Trick welcomed back bassist Jon
\nBrant, who joined the band after Tom Petersson left for a while, as
\nwell as keyboardist Tod Howarth. It seemed fitting to bring closure
\nto that period of the band’s career.<\/p>\n
What is a little harder to deal with, though understood why
\nCheap Trick did it, was to invite their kids to perform on a few
\nnumbers with them. These turned out to be a little more awkward,
\nthough Holland Zander does shine on “Time Will Let You Know”.<\/p>\n
As for featuring every studio album – well, the vote is still
\nout on this. If you’re a die-hard fan of Cheap Trick, this set list
\nhad to top the series of concerts the band played where they
\nreprised their first four albums in their entirety. For the casual
\nfan, it often feels like a bit of overkill, especially on the
\nacoustic set, when the energy level is dragged down to
\nsemi-consciousness.<\/p>\n
All of this said,
\nSilver<\/i> might just raise some listeners’ interest in a few of
\nthe forgotten Cheap Trick releases. The two selections from
\nDream Police<\/i>, “Gonna Raise Hell” and “Dream Police,” are
\nkinda fun to listen to – but where was “Way Of The World”? And I’m
\nprobably the only person in the civilized world who, when I bought
\nit, liked
\nWoke Up With A Monster<\/i>. Maybe the inclusion of the title
\ntrack will stir up some interest in this one.<\/p>\n
\nSilver<\/i>, as a two-disc set, is a definite thank-you gift for
\nCheap Trick’s dedicated fans, who will undoubtedly lap up every
\nsingle note. The fact is, though, that the band could have cut this
\ndown to a single disc and it would have been a tighter release.
\n(See
\nMusic For Hangovers<\/i> as proof.) Still, not a bad effort – and
\nnot a bad way to celebrate 25 years together.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":28104,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[5736],"rating":[5612],"class_list":["post-39498","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-cheap-trick","rating-rating-b-minus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/39498","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39498"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/39498\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28104"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39498"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=39498"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=39498"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}