Their biggest commercial success came late in the decade with a
powerful ballad that topped the charts, but Cheap Trick was already established
as an outstanding live act that proved to have staying power. So much so they
are the only act inducted in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame this year who is
still performing.
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| The album cover for Cheap Trick's live album that really put them on the map. |
Once I got my first ghetto blaster, I used to listen to a lot of music
and music shows on LA-107 FM broadcasting from Lethbridge.
One night, one of the shows featured an American band and an album who
really had more success performing live and away from home.
It was “Cheap Trick at Budokan”, which they recorded in Japan on one
of their tours. They had some commercial success with singles such as “I Want
You to Want Me”. Yet, it was this album that sat at or near the top of the
all-time top live albums of all time.
Ballad
It was on “Good Rockin’ Tonite” where I first actually saw Cheap
Trick. They were interviewing Robin Zander, the lead singer, and Rick Nielsen,
who was the guitar player. What I recall about that was the fact he always wore
a baseball cap, and they talked about how that was his trademark.
I would see it again in an odd spot. One Saturday night, at 11:30
p.m., I was flipping channels – which is easy when there are only three – and came
upon this music video show. “Tonight It’s You” was one of the songs that
played. I don’t recall what it was called, or where it was broadcast from
either.
Groundbreaking
The next time I really heard about Cheap Trick was on “Entertainment
Tonight”. They had a video, the first one that was closed caption for the
hearing impaired. Rick Nielsen was in the bottom right hand corner
communicating in sign language while they played. The song was called “It’s
Only Love” and off the album ‘The Doctor”.
Oddly, a group representing people with epilepsy, complained about the
video because it negatively affected their condition.
In the movies
It was the summer of 1985, I think. I was staying with my cousins in
Brooks, and we rented this movie we wanted to see from the video store. It was
called “Up the Creek” and featured Tim Matheson, a Canadian actor best known to
that point for his role as Otter in “Animal House”. He would go on to play
vice-president John Hoynes in The West Wing for years.
It was a good movie for what it was, a romp like Porky’s or Meatballs.
And the theme song, “Up the Creek”, was done by Cheap Trick. I recall
my cousin Fred noticing that.
I never heard the song again, but it did go to number 23 on the
Billboard Hot 100.
A couple years later, I was at the tail end of Grade 12, and the sound
track from “Top Gun” had been on the charts for months, first with “Danger
Zone” by Kenny Loggins, then “Take My Breath Away” by Berlin, and finally
“Heaven in Your Eyes” by Loverboy. I was sitting in my best friend Chris
Vining’s driveway, in our friend Dave’s truck waiting for Chris. Something was
jabbing me in the leg. It was a tape – the soundtrack to “Top Gun”. I always
found it interesting to read the backs of soundtracks to see what was there
beyond what we heard on the radio.
Sitting there were a few songs by notable artists, most notably
“Mighty Wings” by Cheap Trick. I have probably listened to that song maybe a
half a dozen times. It really never stuck with me, but it did make me think
Cheap Trick was still out there performing and making music.
Oddly, after thinking that, they would have their biggest single to
date.
Live at the Budokan
When I was in Grade 12, my brother began to record tapes for me. All I
had to do was buy a box of TDK blank tapes, which he said were the best, and he
would record whatever I liked on them.
One of the albums was “Cheap Trick at Budokan”. That was my real foray
into the band, because it was essentially a greatest hits album of their music
to that point. I used to listen to it on my ghetto blaster before school, and
again before bed.
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| The album cover for "Lap of Luxury", the Cheap Trick album hat yielded the band's most successful single to date. |
To be honest, I thought I had not heard the radio properly. I was
working at Gergeley’s Greenhouse the summer of 1988 after my first year of university.
We always had the radio playing in the background, whether in the main
greenhouse or in the huge building we built a couple years earlier.
I was in that building, working with a girl named Shiela who had been
one grade ahead of me in high school at Kate Andrews, when I heard this
fantastic ballad on LA-107.
I asked her what it was. She didn’t know.
A couple hours later I heard it again, and thought they said it was by
Cheap Trick.
That must be something else, I thought. Cheap Trick is old. They’re
not putting out any more new music, especially something this good. Couldn’t
be.
I ran into Shiela right after that.
“You know who sings that song you were asking about?”
“Ya,” I responded slowly.
“It’s Cheap Trick,” she said. “The song is called ‘The Flame’.”
I still could not believe it.
Vining, my best friend, and university roommate the entire preceding
year was up at his dad’s, so I couldn’t ask him, and he always was on top of
these things.
The other thing I always did was listen to the radio. It was actually
on the drive home that I heard it again.
Yes, indeed, Cheap Trick had a new single out, and it was the
beautiful ballad I had heard earlier that day.
It was a bit surreal.
That single, “The Flame” would strike a chord with a lot of people. It
went all the way to number one on the Billboard Hot 100, the only number one
single they would ever have.
Personally it remains one of my favourite love songs of all time.
Robin Zander’s voice is just so powerful and soulful.
“The Flame” was on an album called “Lap of Luxury” and it would
produce a few more notable singles – a remake of Elvis Presley’s “Don’t Be
Cruel” and a single called “Ghost Town”.
With that, the decade was over – and it had been a memorable one for
Cheap Trick.
Parting thoughts
Cheap Trick holds a special place in my heart, something that came
after the close of the 1980s. The last year I was at the University of Alberta,
I had a highly stressful job. Almost every Friday night I would meet two close
friends at the lounge upstairs of Boston Pizza on Whyte Avenue, and we would
indulge in a team pitcher or two, depending on the level of stress we all had.
That entire year, from September of 1995 until May of 1996, when no one was
plugging change into the juke box, the machine automatically played a few
albums.
One of the albums that played every night was a greatest hits album by
Cheap Trick. That, well past the 1980s, was when I really fell in love with
Cheap Trick. After all, now I had the best of all worlds.
They were a comfort in a year that was pretty tumultuous for me. Even
now, when I hear, “If You Want my Love, You Got It”: or “The Dream Police”;
“Tonight It’s You”; “The Flame”; or “I want You to Want me”, it brings me fond
memories of the only part of a year that was not stressful.
For that, I will be eternally grateful.
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