Music:

Cheap Trick performs original homage to classic Beatles album

Leila Navidi

Robin Zander of Cheap Trick sings almost all the lead vocals in “Sgt. Pepper Live,” without trying to imitate the voices of John Lennon, Paul McCartney or Ringo Starr. The Beatles tribute show is playing at Barry Manilow’s showroom at the Las Vegas Hilton.

By Joe Brown (contact)

Thursday, Sept. 17, 2009 | 2 a.m.

Sgt. Pepper Live

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Cheap Trick

What: “Sgt. Pepper Live,” featuring Cheap Trick
When: 8 p.m. tonight-Saturday and Monday-Wednesday
Where: Showroom at the Las Vegas Hilton
Admission: $65-$95; 732-5755, lvhilton.com
Running time: About 90 minutes
Audience advisory: Guest artists may change during the run; singing along is inevitable, but remember that this is a quasi-religious experience for many people.

How do you prefer your Pepper?

That was the question last week among Beatles devotees deciding between newly released CD versions of “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.”

Do you prefer the familiar stereo remaster of the 1967 album?

Or have you been fiercely arguing the superiority of the original mono mix, available as part of a $300 box set?

Las Vegas locals and visitors now have another option when picking a Pepper fix: The veteran American power pop band Cheap Trick is performing the entire record live on stage at the Las Vegas Hilton, in the showroom also known as The Home of The Manilow®. The band has also just released a live CD and DVD of its version of the pop culture monolith, making the pile of Pepper platters that much higher.

This unique event offers the chance to experience the full, undiminished power and pleasure of “Pepper,” which the Beatles never performed live, having abandoned it in the studio because their multitrack experimentation was beyond the capabilities of a four-man band. And it’s more intimate and immediate — also cheaper — than Cirque’s revelatory “The Beatles: Love,” which starts at $100.

The beginning of the show brought to mind “The Ed Sullivan Show” or the mid-’60s package tours that would collect a mix of the stars of the day, before the Beatles jumped off the bandwagon and blew everyone’s minds on vinyl.

The lighting and colors suggested black and white, and a lugubrious announcer introduced the show’s “girl singer,” Joan Osborne, who applied her finely textured rasp to “Can’t Buy Me Love” and “The Long and Winding Road.” Singer-songwriter Rob Laufer was joined by the Clark County Children’s Choir, which crooned the celestially high parts of “Across the Universe.” Ian Ball, lead singer of the British band Gomez, assayed a leeringly Lennonesque “I Am the Walrus,” and the song ended with a dark, churning drone, which led into ...

Side One

Three onstage platforms revolved to reveal the members of Cheap Trick: Guitarist Rick Nielsen, sporting a red-and-black striped suit (and baseball cap), with his arsenal of oddly shaped instruments, including his famous five-necked guitar. Drummer Bun E. Carlos didn’t dress for the occasion, and ace bass player Tom Petersson wore a shiny purple jacket.

Lead singer Robin Zander appeared in a paisley-lined blinding-white frock coat with magenta sequined cuffs, topped by a white captain’s cap, which Zander kept pulled low over his eyes the entire show.

With few exceptions, Zander sang almost all the lead vocals, including Ringo’s in “With a Little Help From My Friends,” and he didn’t distinguish vocally between John and Paul — Zander sang as himself.

Nielsen flicked his signature guitar picks into the crowd throughout the show, but when he started shooting lysergic sparks during “Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds,” adding snapping, growling attacks to the guitar (laminated with the portraits from the “Sgt. Pepper” album gatefold) on “Getting Better” and “Fixing a Hole,” it became clear that this joy ride to Pepperland is not a mere stunt for Cheap Trick.

The performance is not a conventional “tribute” imitation or impersonation, but a loving labor from a road-worn working band. Cheap Trick is not pretending to be the Beatles, but the band is playing in the spirit of the Beatles, as if that group were looking back on “Pepper” late in their career, reassessing it and going even further with it musically.

The basic band is augmented by a 25-piece orchestra in a choir loft above the stage, plus a six-person choir that supplied angelic “aahs” and “oohs” as well as crowd sounds and farmyard noises when needed. The orchestra is buoyantly conducted by Edwin Outwater, nattily sporting a military bandleader’s jacket with silver lapels.

Outwater led a string section through “She’s Leaving Home,” and the woozy, careening carnival sounds of “Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite.”

Side Two

For “Within You, Without You,” George Harrison’s fantasia with Indian philosophy and instrumental colorings, they rolled out a tie-dyed futon bearing a seated sextet of Indian musicians, who created sitar shimmer and tabla throb, while Laufer returned with a baby blue acoustic guitar and conjured Harrison’s daydreamy nasal drone.

“When I’m Sixty-Four,” “Lovely Rita,” the cheery cacophony of “Good Morning” and a reprise of “Sgt. Pepper,” brought us, too soon, to “A Day in the Life,” which Nielsen rocked up quite a bit and Atwater conducted into the orchestral freakout frenzy of that Big Bang piano chord.

And there was more — the band charged into the Side Two suite from “Abbey Road,” from “Golden Slumbers” to “The End,” complete with snarling three-way guitar duel. For this listener, this dessert surpassed the main course.

The production’s attention to detail will keep rock obsessives happy: Carlos, for instance, plays a Ludwig drum kit in black oyster finish, set up in Ringo’s configuration; the Cheap Trick logo on his kick drum seems to have adapted the Beatles’ typeface.

True Beatles nerds will enjoy knowing that the sound booth was manned by Geoff Emerick, an engineer on the original album. (The sound seemed two notches overloud and favored lead vocals for much of the program.)

The Hilton may have hit upon a novel kind of draw for the showroom when it’s Manilow-less. Several rock artists have been performing their classic albums in entirety recently: Van Morrison did “Astral Weeks” at the Hollywood Bowl, and Lou Reed performed “Berlin”; Beck just announced he’s recording “do-overs” of classic rock records, starting with “The Velvet Underground and Nico.” So there’s a supply of artists willing to reconsider their milestones, and there’s demand from Mojo-subscribing classic rock followers who will travel to experience their idolized, iconic albums.

Discussion: 12 comments so far…

By mrjb

9/17/09 at 4:15 a.m.

Suggest removal

Cheap trick needs to write some new material and stop copying other artists.
By Debbie_Lynn

9/17/09 at 5:27 a.m.

Suggest removal

Would have loved to go - not coming to Vegas until Oct. 3. New it would be excellent.
By PeterGun

9/17/09 at 10:57 a.m.

Suggest removal

How the heck does Cheap Trick keep getting so many headlines in this paper?

Ha Ha, Hilarious.

They were in their prime about 30 years ago.
By reagan21

9/17/09 at 4:38 p.m.

Suggest removal

I wouldn't want to hear Cheap Trick do Cheap Trick songs. Why would I want to hear them play Beatles tunes; some of the greatest music written over the past 50 years.
By John Katsilometes (Staff)

9/17/09 at 5:35 p.m.

Suggest removal

Great use of that trademark symbol, Joe. Nice touch.
By eric17

9/20/09 at 8:57 a.m.

Suggest removal

The energy Cheap Trick brings to Pepper is better then the original. And their new CD The Latest is one of their best ever, would rather watch them do this new CD from start to finish.
By kevintonight

9/20/09 at 2:37 p.m.

Suggest removal

I don't know, if John Lennon hand picks you to work on an album, and then wants to use you as his backing band you must be doing something right. Also their new cd called the Latest is right up their with their best stuff. Then again if you are prone to being marketed too think an older band can't still be good, then right on man...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bYit_yxRS...
By kevintonight

9/20/09 at 2:40 p.m.

Suggest removal

Also they were approached to do this about two years ago by the Hollywood bowl at the suggestion of Geoff Emerick. You know the guy that was George Martin's right hand man of the original Peppers album. This came to them not the other way around.
By ddorotik

9/21/09 at 9:29 p.m.

Suggest removal

First of all, PeterGun, Cheap Trick, on their worst day, would put you to shame. And you don't know the first thing about CT's music if you think they hit some type of prime 30 years ago, so please stop making a fool of yourself. Second, reagan21, why do we want to hear your comments? No one cares what you have to say, because you don't say anything of substance. So, please, both of you, if you're going to say something, how about comments that are not ignorant or worthless? How about a little substance? Please, stop embarrassing yourselves. Cheap Trick is great, they did full justice to Sgt. Pepper, and the sooner the two of you "get it," the happier your lives will be. ALL YOU NEED IS LOVE!
By MCJH

9/23/09 at 4:42 p.m.

Suggest removal

To mrjb,

Where have you been? Cheap Trick just released a new CD called "The Latest"! Better do your homework before spouting off things you have no clue about!
By Tricksterette

9/28/09 at 8:58 p.m.

Suggest removal

Classic Rock magazine (UK) recently said, 'The band has stuck gold in the autumn of their career. 'The Latest,' is an album that stands up to anything they've recorded....' Cheap Trick is not one of thoes bands, that squeezes the life out of old material. Their music is as relevant today, as it has ever been.

If Cheap Trick is getting headlines, they deserve it! John Lennon said Sgt Peppers could not be performed live. The instrumentation is too complicated. But Cheap Trick brought the album to life spectacularly, without getting buried in The Beatles sound. If you love The Beatles music, this is a wonderful celebration of it.

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