Tricks of the trade
Here's some hot but grainy YouTube footage of a slightly-bloated Robin Zander strolling through He's a Whore with the Tricksters in 1997. Not exactly the band in their pomp, but either way, the Inks stack up well in my estimation.It also conclusively answers the 'soldier tea' vs 'green teeth' dilemma and proves that men of a certain age should not wear leather pants and that anyone sporting both a full beard and a baseball cap will look for all the world like a child molester.
For the musicologists out there, it's also noteworthy that Robin pulls out of the difficult note on the second 'any time at all.'
posted by silky-D at 3:01 pm
4 Comments:
I find it interesting that Robin provides here one of the worst vocal performances I have ever heard. The difference between it and the effort in his fresh faced (although he does have that unsettling rock star preserved-fresh look in 1997) youth is stark.
Also....it looks to me like, although there are only 4 people on stage when big Rick stops playing in a few spots there is a second guitar still playing.
Also, Robin does a fairly limp F# to E in the pre-chorus (I took several musicology subjects at uni but they focused more on whether Beethoven really was instantiating the Hegelian dialectic in his use, and perversion, of the sonata form...and not so much on leather trousers...as usual I must defer to Paddy who actually did a batchelor of music where as I was merely a batchelor of arts majoring in music and poilitcs...and it shows) which does, as Paddy pointed out in his round about way, make more harmonic sense but allows for what is already a weak chorus, when compared to the verse, to become even more tepid.
I agree. It's both disillusioning and encouraging that with just a couple of run-throughs, a raw-like-sushi lead vocallist and basically no experience with the song whatsoever, we managed to sound better than the guys that wrote it and have been performing it for more than 20 years. But then again they've had a lot more coke and bitches than we have...
The classic Cheap Trick lineup is a four-piece... everything else you hear is studio wizardry (and remember they've used everybody from Ted Nugent to George Martin in the producers chair).
and, for those who like their 70s rock in the form of bloated travesty, Cheap Trick are playing The Palais in December. Support comes in the form of ... Thin Lizzy. No shit. Gorham's on board, Lynott still holding out.
I have seen this line up of thin lizzy. They have Ted Nugent's bass player and the final guitar duo of Gorham and John Sykes (who featured on the last studio album which I reckon was the best, Thunder and Lightning. How often does that happen? It seemed to be a one more decent shot for the fans before Phil went into his truly truly crap solo career and death). John Sykes does the vocals and does a pretty good job. They really rocked and going on the info to hand they should blow the Trick off stage barring any hobbling done at the mixing desk. The only improvment with out divine intervention would be if Brian Robertson showed up but he is never mentioned.
Which Cheap Trick album did the nuge produce?
It was, of course, Todd Rundgren not Ted. My memory has failed me yet again... I blame the six pints and souvlaki last night for my somewhat-addled state this morning.
You never know, the Trick may have got back into shape since 97. Set lists from other legs of the current tour indicate 'he's a whore' doesn't make the cut, which might not be such a bad thing.
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