HardReviews 5
by Martin Popoff

Cheap Trick - Silver
(EMI)

Silver is the result of a big family reunion concert, and I do mean family, with all sorts of siblings and kids coming out to perform with the band, plus bassist Jon Brant, as well as guest stars like Billy Corgan, Art Alexakis and Slash, who cuts up You're All Talk into bite-size pieces. Plus there's a sparsely-used orchestra and best of all 31 songs over two CDs. Rick talks a lot and explains everything in his semi-ironic style as the party ramps up to the guest slots. Glad to see Stop This Game, Tonight It's You, Never Had A Lot To Lose and more notably, Hard To Tell from the hugely under-rated self titled album two studio records ago, and Daddy Should Have Stayed In High School off another self-titled album from 27 years ago. Quite the smorg, with all the hits, but as importantly, all those well-crafted, hard-hitting pop songs that were mid-graders or shoulda-beens. Sound quality is very loose, live and noisy, but adequate on all frequencies, in the fine tradition of the band's biggest album, At Budokan, a live screecher that did for Cheap Trick what the similarly crowd-heavy Alive! did for Kiss.
Rating 7.5