And We Rocked It Baby!!

Cheap Trick

Photo by Chad Olson

Remember Cheap Trick?  I think I was about fourteen or fifteen years old when they became really famous, and we used to put their album on the record player and turn up the volume. In my head, I was really cool. On the exterior, I was really NOT!! But jump ahead about thirty-two years and stick me in the middle of a Cheap Trick concert, and honey, I still might not be cool, but I didn't look any worse than anyone else there!!

First, let me just say that these guys can still rock it like it was the 70s. I was impressed. For ninety minutes straight they entertained us without so much as an off key note, and there was no lip syncing taking place. The venue was small, only 750 people, so there was no way to fake it. They had people standing right next to the small stage up next to them. Rick, the main guitar player danced across the stage with his various guitars the entire time, constantly throwing his guitar pics out to the audience. The lead singer was amazing, and could definitely teach something to some of today's young singers that rely on the studio to "make" them sound good. These guys sounded as good in person as they did on their albums. Absolutely amazing.

Now lets get to the people. Oh the people! Honestly, that was almost the best part. I actually half expected there to be some younger people there, and there might have been a couple twenty-five year olds, but I would put the audience age between 45-70. Yep, that's right, 70. And the one guy that I'm pretty sure was seventy was one of the people that stood up in front dancing the entire time. He was feeling the music. It just made me wonder what he was like so many years ago. Was he a head banger? A nerd who can finally let it all out? A really cool guy who just happens to look like a sweet grandpa? Who knows, but he was having a great time. Another character that stood out to me was a guy to my left. He kind of looked like Humpty Dumpty, but very very tall. He stood up and shook his arms in the air for most of the concert, and kept holding a lighter up in the air, even though the security guys would come over every time and tell him to STOP. And the funniest of all was a woman who forgot that she was middle aged completely. She was in the middle of the aisle dancing FOR the band. Her high waisted Lee jeans were shaking more than my chicken in a shake-n-bake bag!! The security guys finally made her go to the back of the room to dance because she was so wild. She actually gave the guard the finger and stomped to the back before she went right back to dancing. Other than that, all of us oldies but goodies managed to really enjoy the show.

Gary and Bonnie

Gary and Pam

The best part of all was the road trip we had with our friends. We went with two couples, Pam and Gary, and Bonnie and Gary. We left early in the day, and the girls went in one car and the guys in another. It was a three hour drive to the concert, so we stopped for breakfast, and a little shopping on the way to the hotel. Once we got to the hotel we had just enough time for some cocktails and appetizers in our room before the show. Since we're all young at heart (and the band is just as old, lol!) the show started at 5:00 PM, and was done in plenty of time for us to go out for a nice long dinner. We found a great place with a screened in porch on the lake. It ended up being a super nice long dinner because our waitress seemed to keep forgetting about us. Thankfully we all had a great sense of humor about it, and managed to have more fun with it than anything.

So, cheers to an awesome weekend my friends!! It was great!