Review: Cheap Trick, O2 Academy

According to taste, “Walsall’s answer to Nickelback” may not be the most potent of rallying cries. But you can’t fault support act Stone Broken’s work ethic. Last seen here on the Glenn Hughes tour back in February, they’ve got it all nailed down – from the big rock anthems with huge bellowed choruses to the chest-beating power ballads. All they have to do now is develop a personality of their own. One important difference, though: their singer doesn’t appear to be a dick.

The Bristol Cheap Trick massive (who knew?) is out in force tonight for the great Illinois pop-rockers’ first gig here in six years, with tour T-shirts of various vintage on display, many of them straining to conceal ample beer bellies. The Tricksters’ arrival is announced with exactly the same intro tape they used last time: a mash-up of song snippets, over-excited Japanese DJs and extracts from The Simpsons that cement the band’s place at the heart of US pop culture (Homer saying “I’d rather listen to Cheap Trick”; Apu singing Dream Police).

They make their entrance with traditional opener Hello There, all three founding members sporting the shades’n’headgear combo favoured by rocking gentlemen of advancing years (guitarist Rick Nielsen’s youthful drummer son Daxx having no need of such apparel). Nielsen wears his traditional baseball cap, vocalist Robin Zander favours the peaked cap and white jacket look, and bassist Tom Petersson is resplendent in what appears to be an expensive fedora.

So far, so familiar. But unlike many of their peers, Cheap Trick don’t stick to a lazy, audience-pleasing, hit-stuffed set list. And maybe it’s because they’re enjoying something of a commercial renaissance, with Surrender once again inescapable following its inclusion on the Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 soundtrack, but tonight they have a distinct spring in their step and are very much in the mood to rock. In defiance of the advance publicity, that awful, saccharine, chart-topping power ballad The Flame is conspicuously not aired. Instead, we get something of a connoisseurs’ choice stuffed with very pleasant career-spanning surprises, including Borderline from Next Position Please and Southern Girls from In Color, plus Oh, Candy and Hot Love from their 1977 debut. Crunchy radio hit You Got It Going On from newie We’re All Alright underlines their knack of writing catchy, clever, tuneful pop-rock, with an increasing, welcome emphasis on rock in the wake of drummer Bun E. Carlos’s departure.

Nielsen cuts a slightly portlier and less agile gurning geek dash these days, hurling fistfuls of picks into the audience and keeping his tech busy with a change of guitars after virtually every song. But the only novelty one he brings out tonight is that Uncle Dick double-neck caricature of himself. He also hauls a couple of rock moppets from the audience and demands to know the name of their favourite band (they have the good sense to get it right) and does most of the wise-cracking (“I don’t even understand American audiences, so I have no idea what you’re saying,” he informs one heckler with a smirk), leaving the remarkably well-preserved Zander (who’d have guessed he’s 64? – though the Trick resist the temptation to play that Beatles cover) to do much of the singing. Underneath all the fun’n’games is an impressively tight band, honed to perfection through constant touring. Zander’s voice has lost none of its power, Nielsen’s tomfoolery makes it easy to overlook his exceptional technical skills, and it’s hard to resist the conclusion that his son Zakk’s recruitment has given them all a vigorous kick up the arse.

Covers time, and things turn a tad surreal as Tom Petersson takes the spotlight. A brief 12-string bass solo gives way to the perkiest, most upbeat and rockin’ cover of I’m Waiting for the Man (plus extract from Heroin) you’ve ever heard, with the bassist’s rich, distinctive drawled vocals. It’s as though the tardy Man in question is anticipated to deliver a caffeine-infused sugary energy drink rather than a big ol’ batch of smack on which to compose further monotonous junkie downer dirges. Nielsen embellishes it with a couple of squealy guitar solos that would have prompted outrage from sourpuss Velvets purists, had any been present.

We’re used to the Trick covering the Fabs, as they’re one of the band’s primary influences. But what we didn’t anticipate was that they’d continue the heroin theme with John Lennon’s Cold Turkey, as originally performed by the Plastic Ono Band, Zander giving it the full primal scream and the whole thing ending in a thunderously heavy Nielsen guitar workout. Suddenly, we’re a long way from smart, sunny pop-rock. “It seemed like there are a lot of junkies in Bristol,” offers the guitarist of this unexpected smackhead diptych.

When I Wake Up Tomorrow from Bang, Zoom, Crazy . . . Hello continues the downbeat mood, the desperation of its lyrics (“Maybe I didn’t understand/All you wanted was a one-night stand…”) contrasting starkly with its earworminess as Zander’s vocals dip into the Bowie register. Buy – hey – we’re up again with a storming Sick Man of Europe and set closer Dream Police.

We all know what the encore is likely to bring, but there’s a big surprise in store. Cheap Trick frequently cover The Move’s California Man, but this time they opt for Blackberry Way. It’s this hack’s favourite Roy Wood composition, and for all their mock-nervousness about performing it for the first time ever on stage their rendition is absolutely magnificent, perfectly recreating all those vocal harmonies. We’re on the home straight now, with those big singalongs I Want You to Want Me and Surrender. Nielsen flings Kiss records into the audience at the appropriate moment during the latter irresistible baby boomer anthem that is the band’s copper-bottomed pension plan and sends us out into the Bristol rain still chanting: “We’re all alright!”