Cheap Trick – Sgt. Pepper Live

The Beatles never preformed Sgt. Pepper live, so when I was invited to attend Cheap Trick’s rendition at the Las Vegas Hilton back in September of 2009, complete with full orchestration, I jumped at the chance. I’d always felt that The Beatles should have taken Sgt. Pepper on the road [even in a limited fashion], that it was more of a live theatrical performance, that the album was restrained, both in concept and delivery by not having the ability to expand, to wash over an audience, to be taken to the next level, and be presented as the operatic masterpiece it was.

So, some 42 years later, those Beatle wanna-be’s Cheap Trick finally did what the Fab Four never managed to do, and they did it outstandingly. Each member of Cheap Trick is multi talented, each member has cut their teeth on The Beatles, as did so many of us, and each member of Cheap Trick put the energy and passion into this lavish production. Robin Zander has the perfect chops for those John Lennon screamers, and when it comes to percussions, Bun E. Carlos can do Ringo like no one else. Of course, there’s little I need say about Rick Nielsen’s guitar work, or the subtle inflections of Tom Petersson on bass, who has Sir Paul’s licks down pat.

There are many who complained that it’s all word for word, note for note, a reproduction of Sgt. Pepper, that Cheap Trick didn’t expand on the premise. I head it all around me as I sat waiting for the audience to clear out, and have read it in countless reviews, leaving me to ask, “What don’t they get?” This production was inspired by Sgt. Pepper, this production was designed to do what The Beatles never did, and that was to bring an audience into the mix, to intoxicate them, to have the music flow in, around, and through them ... and it was done wonderfully. I will certainly say that to hear this outing on disc is little more than a live enactment of the heady psychedelic classic, but to have experienced it as it was unfolding was truly magical. So I would suggest to you that you put the album aside, that you both listen and watch the DVD in order to capture a bit of the rapture that happened on stage and within the blue smoke that hung over the crowd. Though for those of us who were there for those two weeks in September, the recording will instantly transport us back to the night when all things came together.

Review by Jenell Kesler