It doesn't matter what else is on this album. All that matters is I Want You to Want Me and Surrender. Despite those two songs being released on other albums, and despite the airplay they received, these live versions will, for me, always be the versions of the songs. The screaming in the background and the "Let me talk so slow so you can understand me" intro: I want YOU to want ME; that's Cheap Trick.
They never did much for me otherwise (besides my weird, geeky affinity for Rick Nielson) and I love those songs more for the memories they provide than anything else. Surrender is just one of those tunes that I will never turn off when it comes on the radio; I'll sing it as if it's still 1979 and the line "got my Kiss records out" is relevant.
Favorite song: Surrender
30th anniversary edition
5 comments:
For me, the cover of Ain't That A Shame is reason enough to hang onto the vinyl for (gulp) thirty years.
I was totally remiss in not mentioning that song.
Ain't That A Shame
Can you imagine those kids, 30 years ago, most of whom (at the time) probably spoke little if any English?
The band had a minor hit later on with The Flame which to me sounded too much like a Meat Loaf song.
But those three songs remain tops on my playlist (if I had one).
To be honest, other than this album and Dream Police (basically just the song, not the album), I wasn't a big fan, either. But how could a nerd like me ignore a band with guys who looked like Bun E. Carlos and Rick Nielsen in it?
The strangest live pairing I ever saw was the Ramones opening for Cheap Trick in Bangor, Maine.
Absolutely in total agreement on "Ain't That A Shame". I loves me some Fats Domino, but their version kicks his original to the curb.
I keep looking at this band and wondering if they weren't pushing some kind of performance art on us. Bun E. Carlos and Rick Nielson? WTF? And then the two pretty boys up front? And they were "big in Japan." And they caught lightning in a bottle at the Budokan. Rick Nielson's guitar pyrotechnics at the end of Ain't That a Shame always kill me. So he was more than just some proto geek gimmick. Funny, how he became the prototype of geeks everywhere. Funny to look at it but extremely proficient and sometimes even surprising. The more I think about this band, the more I think they were performance artists.
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