Customer Reviews

Cheap Trick: Sgt. Pepper Live

5 star:		(33)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(2)
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This is an excellent concert performed by Cheap Trick, along with a few guest vocalists and a full backing orchestra doing the entire Sergeant Pepper's album, pretty much note-perfect. Special mention needs to go to Tom Petersen's bass-playing which, to me, was perhaps the most impressive part of the whole concert - he really had his work cut out for him doing Paul's bass parts from that album and he did not disappoint! The end song/encore of "Golden Slumbers/Carry That Weight/The End" was superb, especially Bun E.'s drum solo. One observance: I thought Rick's guitar sound on "Good Morning Good Morning" and "SPLHCB (Reprise)" was too soft - it didn't have the sting of the original guitars on The Beatles' classic but I think he was simply trying not to duplicate the record. That aside, this was a great concert with Robin in fine voice, and the backing band and full orchestra doing an awesome job. Beatles/Cheap Trick fans need to definitely pick this up!

Cheap Trick has never shied away from their love of The Beatles. From the early cover of "Day Tripper" to making "Magical Mystery Tour" to lone new cut on their original Greatest Hits CD, Robin Zander, Tom Peterssen, Bun E Carlos and Rick Nielsen could knock 'em out like nobody's business. But to recreate the landmark Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band album as a live (for charity) event, played from start to finish? That takes some Ernie Ball strings of steel.

The surprise is just how well Cheap Trick pulls this off. From the instantly familiar power of the opening chords to the fun Abbey Road encore medley, the band starts strong, works it hard and finishes solid. Guest performers Joan Osborne gives a twist to "Lovely Rita," and Rob Laugher channeling George Harrison for "Within You Without You" is one of many highlights here. The recreation of George's sitar here is jawdroppingly good.

The band and their pals all look like they're having a blast doing this, but they're taking it dead serious, too. Geoff Emerick, The Beatles' original engineer, was brought in for the sound. The NY Philharmonic fleshes out the orchestral parts (along with Zander's vocals, you'll get goose bumps during "She's Leaving Home"). Almost all the musical intricacies of the original album are brought out (at least the ones that aren't sound effects, anyways), and Tom just flat-nails McCartney's bass parts. The camerawork is well done, with only minor moments of short-attention span editing. Suprisingly, there's almost no between song patter. Instaed, the band includes a bonus featurette where each trickster talks about the influence of "Sgt Pepper" on the Cheap Trick world.

"Sgt Pepper Live" could have been a train wreck of pigpile proportions, but Cheap Trick makes it work. The songs are faithfully Beatles, but the sound is unmistakably Cheap Trick. For a band that has long been out of the limelight (their 16th studio album, The Latest, is way better than you'd expect), "Sgt Pepper Live" avoids the pratfall of sounding like a cover band and shows that rock and reverence aren't always mutually exclusive.

I've been buying concert DVDs for too many years and the real test of any DVD is will it be viewed more than once. I've already watched this concert at least 4 times...created an avi file for business trips and watched on our home system. The sound is fairly amazing with a good pair of headphones. I'm not sure how much post production was done with the live mix but Geoff Emerick is beyond reproach as a engineer/producer. The band is excellent...how does Robin sing like that on a consistant basis and Tom's bass playing makes me want to go back and do that for a living. I have a new appreciation for Cheap Trick and Sgt. Peppers after getting this DVD. Buy it and let's see how the remastered stuff sounds in a couple of weeks. Also, make a run for Las Vegas to see the gentlemen of Cheap Trick do this in September.

But I would have very much preferred to have Zander sing more of the songs. True, Rob Laufer and company do a great Within You Without You. And you do need different singers while going from She's Leaving Home(a fantastic performance by Zander) to Mr. Kite. But while Zander is in McCartney's league as a vocalist, Ian Ball leaves a lot to be desired. Lovely Rita and When I'm 64 would have come off a lot better if sung by Zander as well. Still this is an excellent addition to any Beatles collection and I can only hope that Cheap Trick can someday soon do the same for Abbey Road (with some added tracks from Let It Be)and Magical Mystery Tour (with added tracks from Yellow Submarine and the White Album).

The DVD of Cheap Trick's "Sgt. Pepper" full-album replay (CD also available) is a very good document of the NY benefit concert staging of the same show that I saw in LA at the Hollywood Bowl around 2 years ago (I think the only difference was that we had Aimee Mann at the LA show). The DVD only runs about 65 minutes (including the 15 minute interview with the band, the whole Sgt. Pepper album performance and the excellent "Golden Slumbers" medley from Abbey Road to finish the live segment) but the price is pretty fair. Sound is good (Geoff Emerick co-produced this, and had personally engineered several of the tribute shows, including the one I saw); picture is good, but as with a lot of stuff these days, the edits are too MTV-fast style, which gets distracting. The band is in fine form, with good support - horns and string sections, Ian Ball from Gomez is quite good on the couple of tunes he sings lead/co-lead on; Joan Osborne sings lead on "Lovely Rita" (a woman singing to a woman?), and Rob Laufer turns in a vocal that is nearly a dead ringer for George, on "Within You, Without You" (which I never really cared for on the original LP, but his vocal and tabla/strings on this are so good live, that it had me reconsidering). I'd have preferred a DVD shot at the Hollywood Bowl show/series that I attended (which had the Hollywood Bowl band - it was an awesome show) but this one from the Waldorf Astoria in NY is very good (and it benefits Michael Milken's prostate cancer charity, so it's for a good cause).

This was an album that John Lennon once said could never be replicated live! Cheap Trick did it and except for Joan Osborne piece -- this is perfection - Zander and band -- you guys have always made wonderful music. Zander pulled off all John, Paul and Ringo leads to perfection (Unreal on Little Help From My Friends!!!!) - and blew me away on "A Day In The Life", especially with the tail end (John Vocals) that puts the song over the top. When I saw Mc this summer he cut that part out and went into Give Peace a Chance! Please release this DVD and your Silver DVD in Blu Ray -- Both are perfect candidates.

An amazing concert. One of my all time favorite bands performance of my all time favorite bands most pivotal (along with Revolver) recordings. Cheap Trick are always fun to watch, and here even more so. Rick nails the solos, and adds his own tasteful touch to them. Robin's vocals are nothing less than inspired. Bun E... well proves once again that he is one of the best drummers in the business. Tom pulls it all together... you don't really notice him, but BELIEVE me you would miss him if he was not there. This concert, albeit short, is just TOO MUCH FUN to watch!

All Cheap Trick fans will want to add this CD/DVD to their collection. Excellent performance. I only wish Robin Zander sang all the songs instead of the guest singers. Backup singers, added guitarist, and orchestra were fantastic!

This is a wonderfully enjoyable romp through Pepperland! The performance was produced by Geoff Emerick who was one of the original engineers on the Beatles Sgt. Pepper album, and his influence has contributed to a pitch-perfect performance. The show was recorded live in L.A. at a benefit for cancer research, and the performers donated their time. It seems as if "She's Leaving Home" was written for Robin Zander. His rendition literally moved me to tears - it was so heartfelt and compelling. This is one DVD I will be viewing over and over again!

Cheap Trick's fans have compared them to The Beatles for decades, but the band members themselves gently scoff at the notion. But there is perhaps no better American band than Cheap Trick to pull of a Beatles tribute of this magnitude (except maybe for a Beatles tribute band, of which there are several, but it wouldn't be the same as this kind of tribute).

For a band whose members all hover somewhere around the age of 60, these card-carrying AARP members are one of the tightest and most solid bands still rockin'. Vocalist Robin Zander truly is the man of a thousand voices, and he and the boys do a near-perfect note-for-note rendering of a classic album. You never forget it is The Beatles and you never forget it is Cheap Trick. The mesh is seamless.

Joan Osborne joins as a back-up vocalist and takes lead on "Lovely Rita". Despite another reviewer's dissatisfaction with that, I thought it was very well done.

The band is backed by an orchestra not quite as large as the one that backed them at the Hollywood Bowl in L.A. when they did this show before, but it is ample enough to get the job done. The fellow who engineered the original Sgt Pepper album back in the 60's was a participant in this project as well, and the band testifies that it makes all the difference.

Following the album's last track, the band does the medley that closes the "Abbey Road" album, and it is just as stellar and precise as the material from SPLHCB.

The running time is short, but the disc price is low. You can't lose.