Cheap Trick - Bethel Woods, NY 6/22/18

Cheap Trick was part of Poison's "Nothing But A Good Time" summer tour. Pop Evil was the tours opener.

Cheap Trick has been around for over 40 years now and these guys still put on a great rock show. I was relieved to see Cheap Trick finally get into the rock-n-roll hall of fame back in 2016. How they were not in years ago is mind boggling given their history but it's happened before with a lot of rock acts. With all the shows I've seen over the years, I actually never saw Cheap Trick until about 3 years ago.

Vocalist Robin Zander and lead guitarist Rick Nielsen are the stars of the show here. Robin still has the vocal chops even after singing for more than 4 decades and can work the stage with the best of them. Also loved Robin's all white suit, white hat and white converse sneakers. Not many singers could pull that kind of style off, but he does. Rick is having all sorts of fun on stage interacting with the fans up front and throwing out guitar picks non-stop. He even stuck one to the face of the venues security that was in front of the stage. He must go through close to a 100 picks per show. I also couldn't wait to see what guitars Rick uses on stage. He has a pretty impressive collection of classic and custom guitars. Bassist Tom Peterson is also part of the classic line up and was good to see him all over the stage and the great interaction he had with the entire band. Tom even took over lead vocals on one song. New York Dolls guitarist Earl Slick joined the band on stage for a couple songs.

Opening with the very appropriate "Hello There", I knew I was in for an awesome show. Cheap Trick powered through a great 14 song set list. Included was all the hits people want to hear, a few covers and they even performed a new song "The Summer Looks Good On You". It's the first single off their new album due towards the end of the year. With that in mind, we should see a headlining tour from Cheap Trick in the very near future.

Link to Poison's pictures and show coverage: http://rockoutwithmyshotout.blogspot.com/2018/06/poison-bethel-woods-ny-62218.html

Set list:

1. Hello There
2. You Got It Going On
3. California Man 
   (The Move cover)
4. If You Want My Love
5. Ain't That a Shame
   (Fats Domino cover)
6. The Summer Looks Good on You
7. Bass Solo
8. I'm Waiting for the Man
   (The Velvet Underground cover) (Tom Peterson on lead vocals) (with 'Heroin' snippet)
9. The Flame
10. I Want You to Want Me
11. Dream Police
12. Cold Turkey
    (Plastic Ono Band cover) (with Earl Slick) (tour debut)
13. Surrender
    (with Earl Slick)
14. Goodnight Now