Cheap Trick – “Surrender”, “Dream Police”, “Takin’ Me Back”, “On The Radio” and “Ghost Town”

The first Cheap Trick song I remember hearing, and one that has always stuck in my mind, was “Surrender”…

“Mommy’s all right, Daddy’s all right, they just seem a little weird, surrender, surrender, but don’t give yourself away”:

It must have been 1979 when I piled into a car with a few other guys and headed for Wellington for the “Dream Police” tour concert.

In a scene reminiscent of “Wayne’s World”, with the windows down and long hair (in my case at least) blowing in the wind, we sang the songs all the way from Palmerston North, a trip of about an hour and a half if I remember rightly.

Unfortunately, when we got there, we waited, and waited, and waited…

It turned out the truck with all the band’s gear had come off the road on the way from Auckland to Wellington and ended up in a ditch.

So we all got back in the car and went home.

There was a happy ending however, as next day (I think) off we went to Wellington again.

It was great.

There was seating in the Wellington Show Building, and we were right up the front on the right hand side – about 6 to 10 feet in front of these MASSIVE speakers.

I got a really good view in particular of the bassist, Tom Petersson with his legendary 12 string bass (if you know anything about rock music, you’ll know a bass usually only has four strings!), and behind him the poker faced drummer, Bun E. Carlos, contrasting with the lively vocalist Robin Zander with his long blonde hair.

And of course madcap Rick Nielsen was batting guitar picks out into the crowd with one of his many guitars.

Speaking of which, to show you how maniacal he can be, here’s a live recording of “Dream Police” with a long intro of Rick playing not one but THREE guitars (this was made about two years later):

Or if you prefer the original studio video…

And this track from “Heaven Tonight (the same album as “Surrender”) says it all:

You’re takin’ me back…

You sure are!

But wait, there’s more – finally found a live version, albeit around 20 years later:

Still hitting the high notes.

And to close out, from the same concert, another track from “Heaven Tonight”, called “On The Radio”:

Okay, not quite closing out, I just had to leave you with this hauntingly beautiful track from Cheap Trick’s “Lap of Luxury” album, not strictly from the Seventies, but I covered myself for cases like this in my very first post 🙂 (“My Seventies Music – Welcome!”).

Time to get out of town…

Paul

Tags: 12 string bass, Bassist, Blowing In The Wind, Bun E. Carlos, Cheap Trick, Ditch, Dream Police, Ghost Town, Hour And A Half, Long Blonde Hair, Long Hair, Music of the Seventies, On The Radio, Original Studio, Palmerston North, Rick Nielsen, Robin Zander, Rock Music, Seventies Rock Bands, String Bass, Surrender, Takin' Me Back, Three Guitars, Tom Petersson, Vocalist, Wellington

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