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SXSW review: Cheap Trick at Auditorium Shores
(Jay Janner AMERICAN-STATESMAN)Let’s talk about how a seasoned band should build a set list: You’ve got to push the new album, of course, but not to the detriment of stuff deep in the catalog that old fans will appreciate. If it’s a big crowd — meaning there will be more than a few casual fans — you’re going to have to play that one song everybody knows, whether you want to or not. Bonus points if you’re playing more than once over a few days in the same town and don’t play the same set over and over.
So it went with Cheap Trick at Auditorium Shores Friday night. With a sizable crowd enjoying quite possibly the last hours of pleasant weather during SXSW 2010, the band opened with “Hello There,” closed with “it’s-the-same-song-but-different “Goodnight,” enthusiastically delivered about a half-dozen songs for their most recent, “The Latest” and, gulp, dutifully performed their monster hit, “The Flame.”
On Thursday night the band taped an upcoming episode of “Austin City Limits” and entirely neglected their first album. On Friday they got re-aquainted with that self-titled 1977 record, one of the weirdest, darkest records cheerfully masquerading as harmless ock ‘n’ roll ever. “The Ballad of TV Violence?” OK! And why we’re at it, how about “Oh Candy,” “Taxman” and “He’s a Whore?”
They had me at “He’s a Whore.”
But let’s say an uncharacteristic word in defense of “The Flame,” or at least singer Robin Zander’s vocal delivery of it. Born in 1953, the guy still sounds like he’s 20, and a lot of the Cheap Trick catalog calls for roaring delivery.
As they did Thursday night, the band dedicated “Sleep Forever,” “Heaven Tonight” and “That ’70s Song” (a reworking of Big Star’s “In The Street) to the memory of Alex Chilton, possibly the most noteworthy SXSW no-show ever. In a town even more full of musicians than usual, it seems everybody is remembering Chilton with a mixture of melancholy and sadness. Kind of like the man’s music.
Speaking of no-shows, the band’s management Friday night released a statement explaining, sort of but not really, the absence of drummer Bun E. Carlos: “Bun E. Carlos is not currently the touring drummer for Cheap Trick. Bun E. remains a band member. Everyone is healthy and Cheap Trick will continue to tour as planned.”
Filling in at both Thursday and Friday’s gigs was guitarist Rick Nielsen’s son, Daxx, and it was quite clear the guy has sat in for Carlos.
Nielsen paraded his collection of guitars around, including his five-neck Hamer, mugged and threw picks, as one would expect. They closed with “Gonna Raise Hell” and that they did indeed.
Cracker and the BoDeans were perfectly fine as the opening acts, and Cracker’s David Lowery was in a better mood than he was with Camper Van Beethoven Thursday night.
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Permalink | Comments (2) | Categories: SXSW 2010
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By marc clapp
March 21, 2010 5:40 PM | Link to this
It was an awesome night and easily one of the best show’s I’ve seen in years. Props to Cheap Trick and SXSW for putting that on for us.
By Mike Wimer
March 21, 2010 6:21 PM | Link to this
very touching versions of Sleep Tonight (acappella) and Heaven Tonight was amazing…