Respective

Power Ballad Time!

My third time seeing Cheap Trick was a few years after this was a hit. They sounded good as ever. They played “The Flame”, sure, but they also gave some time to one of my favorite collections by them, “Cheap Trick ‘97” which is a pretty dark record but still rocks beautifully. It lingers in the mind and heart. I suppose at its core, the album is about what we owe to ourselves and to our families. That’s how it hits me.

Anyway, on this particular night at The Warfield in San Francisco, it was a rowdy crowd and after the last song (before the encore) some jokers in the crowd threw cups of beer up at the band and that was the end of the show.  No encores.

A couple of years after that I attended a drum clinic by Bun E. Carlos which was like a sermon in the church of rock ‘n’ roll.  That was the last live experience I’ve had with any of this crew. Chances are on this particular night they played a gig somewhere on the planet. They’ve brightened faces from here to Japan and back again about a zillion times.