Cheap Trick Not All Washed Up At Parx
by Alex Lloyd Gross
Cheap Trick is still making new music and their lastest record is called All Washed Up. That’s about the only thing washed up with this band. They played to a near capacity crowd at the Xcite Center in Bensalem this weekend. The band was on fire.
They played a lot of the hits and more popular songs off their classic records. Songs like “Heaven Tonight”, “I want You To Want Me” were staples of Cheap Trick Shows. As was “Dream Police”, which featured an iconic backdrop of the album cover of the same name.
Alex Lloyd Gross Photo Delaware Valley News.com Robin Zander and Tom Peterson jam on stage.
Rick Nielsen went through multiple guitar changes during the show. He played behind a mic stand that was festooned with guitar pics. Fans in the crowd were hoping he would toss them all out, but only about a quarter or so made it into the crowd. This show would have been even greater had Cheap Trick broke out with lesser known tracks like “High Priest Of Rhythmic Noise” or even the classic “Gonna Raise Hell”. Unfortunately, they were not played.
They did break out an extended jam session on ‘On Top Of the World’ and from the first record, ‘The Ballad Of TV Violence”. The heyday of this band was in 1978 through 1980 and they know this, hence most of the songs played were from that era.
From the Live At Budakon record, most of those track were played, including “Lookout” and “Clock Strikes 10”. This band is getting older. They might not move as quick on stage as they did 50 years ago but they sounded as good, if not better.
Let’s hope this is not the final tour for this band, they seem ready to have a few more tours in them. Philly is a strong region for them, with several headlining shows at the now extinct Philadelphia Spectrum. During the show in 1979 Rick Nielsen grabbed a fake rat from the stage, showed it to the crowd then tossed it to the crowd. During this show, they exchanged light banter with some of those in the crowd.
Alex Lloyd Gross Photo Delaware Valley News.com Tom Peterson take care of the bass during the show.
The 1998 they opened the Hard Rock in center city Philly and WMGK had them live on July 4th in Pennsauken in 2003. Now they get to add Parx Casino to their resume.