Tag: Cheap Trick

Bands with husband

by Karen, posted in Date night, He and me, local fun

This week we were very happy to get to see some of our favorite bands from back in the day. In general, I am not a big fan of going to Boston (especially if it involves driving) for bands, but in this case, there were no Maine or New Hampshire options (at that time) so it was Boston or nothing.

For the first show, my sister- and brother-in-law helped make it less painful by offering to drive, and my mother-in-law let us stay over at her house (MUCH CLOSER TO BOSTON) so we didn’t have a two-hour ride home to Maine in the wee hours. For the second show, we took the Downeaster ($70 or so round trip with the meager-but-appreciated AAA Discount) that took us practically door to door. NOTE: One thing about the train…the phrase, “Hell is other people” kept coming to mind on the way down. ‘Nuf said.

With these deal-breakers taken care of, we were off.

 

The first show was at the Blue Hills Pavilion. The line up was Jason Bonham, Cheap Trick (my husband’s favorite band) and Foreigner (their 40th Anniversary Tour).

The second show was at the TD Boston Garden. The line up was Peter Wolf (of J. Geils Band fame) and Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers (coincidentally, also their 40th Anniversary Tour).

We decided to rate the bands in order of how much we liked their shows.

He:

  1. Cheap Trick (She: No surprise there! It’s been his favorite band since he was, like, sixteen  years old!) 
  2. Foreigner (Surprise! I didn’t think that was going to be number 2.)
  3. Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers (Tom Petty was a little uneven. Sometimes you just gotta give the people what they want–like Foreigner did.)
  4. Peter Wolf (I would have liked to have heard more from him.)
  5. Jason Bonham (He was really good!) 

She:

  1. Foreigner (As I was listening, I realized that I knew the words to every single one of the songs! Okay, except for one. Also, so many of them correlated to important people and events from my past that it was like watching an episode of “This is Your Life“.)
  2. Cheap Trick (I have come to love Cheap Trick, a band I loathed in my teens. I didn’t know as many of the songs they chose to sing this time, which was a little disappointing, but they were still great) 
  3. Peter Wolf (I saw J. Geils Band many times in my younger years, and one of the things I loved best was watching Peter Wolf dance. He’s as great as he ever was! And he sang several of my favorite songs.)
  4. Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers (Okay,I am sorry to say that TP came in 4th out of 5! What a letdown. He did sing a couple of my favorites, but many of his choices were obscure, and I could have done without the extended instrumentals and the dragged out introduction of the band members. Tom, maybe you would have had time to play “Here Comes My Girl” if you spent a little less time on those other things…Just sayin’. Reference: “Give the people what they want” said by he, above.)
  5. Jason Bonham (Wasn’t as bad as I expected. I didn’t want to leave or anything.)

That’s it! How would YOU rank these five bands? Comment below!

 

An old dog, a new (cheap) trick (part two)

by Karen, posted in local fun, Marriage, relationships

robinThen Cheap Trick (did I mention that’s my husband’s favorite band?) came to town.

Sure, they had come to town before, but he never brought it up and I never did either. It was the elephant in the room until the show date came and went. There were usually plenty of good reasons (child care issues, work schedule conflicts, just a little too far away) why we both couldn’t have gone together to the show anyway. Oh, and also, I didn’t like Cheap Trick. I was perhaps the only person who didn’t think Robin Zander was hot.

Once, years ago, I casually mentioned to my husband that if I spent enough time around someone (read: a guy), I could find something about him to like.  After I got over the shock of realizing that he actually pays attention to what I say, I realized that he also used this to his advantage. Well, to our advantage. He started playing Cheap Trick music in the car when I with him-a cheap attempt to get me to ‘spend some time’ with Cheap Trick.

He also took me to the venue where they were playing a few weeks in advance to get familiar with the area. We spent several hours exploring and learning our way around, thereby exponentially increasing my comfort level.  The end result was this: a week before the show, I was singing along to Cheap Trick songs and looking forward to the show.

Me.

I know, right?

It was awesome. I had a great time. Oh, and now I am perhaps the only person who does think that Robin Zander is hot.

Just sayin’.

An old dog, a new (cheap) trick (part one)

by Karen, posted in Date night, local fun, Marriage, Midlife Crisis, relationships, Turning 50

Cheap TrickYou know how they say that your tastes change as you get older? I have found this to be true in my own life.

  1. I never liked cheese on my pizza. When I was little, maybe 4 or 5 years old, my parents used to scrape it off (and onto their own slices, I imagine) and tell me that they got some cheese-less pizza, “special” for me.  That changed by the time I got to high school, when I ordered my pizza with ‘extra cheese’, just like everyone else.
  2. I never liked seafood. With the exception of canned tuna (white, tuna, in water), and the odd clam strip filched from Dad’s plate once a year when we ate out at HoJo’s, nary a fish crossed my plate…for years. I didn’t start eating (fried only) seafood until I moved to Maine because, you know, it’s the law.
  3. Melted American cheese. No, wait, I still hate that.

To approach this from the standpoint of musical tastes, I also have undergone a transformation. Back in the day, I liked The Cars. The Motels. Face to Face. Fleetwood Mac. Still do.

I didn’t like Kiss. Def Leppard. Guns N’ Roses.  Headbanger music is what I called it.  Poison. Motley Crew…and Cheap Trick. As my grandmother would say, I ‘had no use for them’.

Then I met my husband. The first time I got in his jeep and heard what he was listening to on the radio, I knew that we had, um, widely different tastes in music. I was a Kiss 108 kind of girl. He was an FNX (listen to it? I’d never even heard of it) kind of guy.

We met in the middle with John Mellencamp and Bon Jovi and made the best of it. I didn’t make him listen to my music and he didn’t make me listen to his.

Then Cheap Trick (did I mention that’s my husband’s favorite band?) came to town.

(to be continued…)