The hair was big. The guitars were loud—almost as loud as the prints on everyone’s clothes.  The 1980s ushered in an era of pure chaos in pop music, with MTV merrily leading the charge, rotating through a schizophrenic catalog of bubble gum pop, New Wave, early rap, rock music, performance artists, and obscure alternative bands from Europe and small-town USA. 

Bubbling up from this mad stew of genres, makeup, big hair, punk rock, post-psychedelic music, and general rule-ignoring emerged a little band from Rockford, Ill., who had just cracked open their niche with the live album Cheap Trick at Budokan.  

The catapulting hit here was “I Want You To Want Me.” Cheap Trick guitarist Rick Nielsen originally wrote the song as a tongue-in-cheek over-the-top pop song, but the live performance on At Budokan launched Cheap Trick to the top of the charts. As they say, Cheap Trick was big in Japan. But, suddenly, this little-known rock outfit from Middle America was opening for KISS and Queen. The boys from Rockford had made it.

Just for fun, they’d already been filming concept videos in the late 1970s, before the debut of MTV and subsequent music video craze. They dove into the MTV generation with these concept videos for “She’s Tight,” the live concert footage of “I Want You To Want Me,” an 80s pop version of Elvis’s “Don’t Be Cruel,” and “Dream Police.”

“Dream Police” is one of the earliest examples of a concept video and visual branding (the band’s logo and ubiquitous checkerboard pattern recur throughout). Rock history has credited Cheap Trick with being ahead of the times. They were influencers before there were influencers.

The MTV generation latched onto Cheap Trick’s look, their sound, and their simultaneously catchy yet low key weird lyrics. The band’s videos combined bold cinematic effects with handheld-quality performance footage, giving viewers a sense of a live concert enhanced with big budget home movies. Their videos, especially “Dream Police,” were artful and interesting.

Cheap Trick was its own sound that came out of the flamboyant collision of sounds that made 80s music. Singularly punk and rock rooted, Cheap Trick added a kitschy pop culture flair to their style that would, today, be admired as “so unserious.” Cheap Trick’s schtick—the checkerboard, the double-name logo, Robin’s top hats, and Rick’s outrageous “quint-neck” guitar only reinforced their rock creds even while they were clowning onstage.

Here we are, quite a few decades beyond the 80s, with the checkerboard darlings of Cheap Trick slamming down live show after live show as one of the hardest working bands in the business. Rick thrashes his quint-neck. Robin belts out “The Flame,” lighters-turned-cell-phones swaying in time. Tom pelts away on his bass guitar, holding everyone together.

The ultimate joke is that Cheap Trick is neither. Are they a good time rock ‘n’ roll band? Believe it. But, they’ve outlasted almost every rock band from the 70s. Their hits “Surrender” and “I Want You To Want Me” live under “songs everybody loves” in our collective cultural jukebox.

If you’ve never seen them live, here’s your chance. Catch Cheap Trick on their All Washed Up tour June 4 in Peace Concert Hall.

Want More Classic Rock? Jason Bonham’s Led Zeppelin Evening

So, you’re a fan of the more serious guitar-wailing, drum-driven rock ‘n’ roll from the 70s? Like Led Zeppelin. Say no more. John Bonham’s son Jason—a drummer, just like his Led Zep dad—arrives in the Peace Concert Hall on June 3 with LED ZEPPELIN EVENING. Hear the hits only one generation removed but with every bit of the relentless energy and rock showmanship that was the original.

There's always something happening at the Peace Center - see the complete show calendar.