dlr (10/20/82)
micro-review : Great Show milli-review : The boys play almost all of their best material, with great enthusiasm; Loads of fun Full Review: The Park West ( 322 W. Armitage, Chgo. ) A small nightclub like hall with almost no poor seats, most are good, and many are excellent. Two drink minimum @ $3.00 per. One of the better halls in the area. Show opens with a 45 minute set by "The Elvis Brothers", a trio (guitar, bass, drums) that plays obscure but tasty R & R. Very tight group with good stage presence (bass player is a ham). Cheap Trick Well, I'm biased, they are a favorite hometown band. I can even remember when Rick (and former bass player Tom) were with "Fuse" (a really obscure group). They have certainly improved since the early bar band days. The three night stand at the Park West is the close of the summer tour to push their new album (One on One). They played a rousing 90 minute (back to back sets) show that included at least one number from each of their albums/EPs. The play list was 23 songs, with Robin playing guitar on 11 (very unusual). Naturally, several of the tunes were from the latest album, which is very good (almost as good as their second album). Selections were - One on One; If You Want My Love; and She's Tight. They did Dream Police with such intensity that the crowd stood, and some people were even dancing (not easy in this case). The only numbers they did that were not their own were, California Man (with slices of Brontosaurous ala Roy Wood/Move fame) and Day Tripper (yes, that one - too bad they haven't put Day Tripper on disc, they do it better than the Beatles). Of course, they used all of the Cheap Tricks that represent their own peculiar parody of "really big rock stars". Rick flicked guitar picks (with his picture on them), he threw one of his old sweaters out to the croud (he must be doing fall wardrobe cleanup), and he played the dreaded (~65 lbs.) 5 neck guitar. They also did two encores (another Cheap Trick). The first encore included a nifty song called "Bite It", the music was like something every other band in the world has played, but the lyrics (sung by Rick for a change) included "Bite it,...Kiss it,...Lick it,... (I'll let you guess the rest). Overall, a great show, very adult oriented (at ChicagoFest 8/12/82 they played "hits" and used faster tempos to speed things up a bit), and in closing, if you want to see a super show, you should catch these guys the next time they come to your area. Dave Rosik ihuxr!dlr