Cheap Trick band members pay tribute to Beatles in ‘Sgt. Pepper Live’ shows

Only in Las Vegas could Cheap Trick's salute to "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" compete head-on with "Love," which is officially sanctioned by the surviving Beatles.

But guitarist Rick Nielsen says "Sgt. Pepper Live" has the blessing of key players in the Beatles organization. The special shows with an orchestra land at the Las Vegas Hilton Sunday through Sept. 23, amid renewed Beatlemania sparked by "The Beatles: Rock Band" and reissues of the classic albums.

"We have sort of the six steps from Kevin Bacon," Nielsen says.

Let's play the six degrees of separation game:

1. George Martin produced the Cheap Trick "All Shook Up" album way back in 1980. When Cheap Trick was riding high on the success of "Dream Police," "We got George Martin to come to Madison, Wis., to do preproduction for our 'All Shook Up' album."

More recently, Nielsen had lunch at the fabled producer's house outside London. "George and Judy cooked lunch for my wife and myself," Nielsen says.

During the lunch, Nielsen says he went to the bathroom and discovered an Ampex Golden Reel award hanging "right next to the 'Sgt. Pepper' gold album. I think George probably went down in the basement, dusted it off and put it up in there because he knew I was coming."

2. Paul McCartney plays a left-handed Les Paul guitar that Nielsen gave to him.

Second perhaps only to his collection of ball caps and checkerboard pattern-wear, Nielsen is known as a guitar collector. Even though he couldn't play the lefty Les Paul, it's one of only three, made in 1960, and "I've always been a crazed person about cool guitars."

When he told an interviewer for a guitar magazine that McCartney should have it, the cute Beatle took him up on it. "That guitar's worth at least a million dollars today, so Paul still owes me money.

"I'll never get the money from Paul, but I still know George Martin."

3. The band also knows Geoff Emerick, who engineered "Sgt. Pepper" and "Abbey Road" -- and later, "All Shook Up." Emerick helped the group pull the first "Sgt. Pepper" concert together for the Hollywood Bowl in 2007, and remains involved as music director each time they stage it.

"It's a daunting task. We had to put a lot of work into it," Nielsen says. Part of the challenge was re-creating all the intricacies of the 1967 album, which the Beatles never intended to perform live, without sounding like a cover band.

"I'm not a studio musician for one. I can't even play my own stuff," Nielsen says. But he realized that with sacred material, "I can't just jam it. I actually have to try to learn it."

The delicate balance passed muster with Emerick. Nielsen says the engineer told them, "You guys play it with so much more energy, (instead of like) a band getting ready to break up."

4. Nielsen and Trick drummer Bun E. Carlos collaborated with John Lennon on sessions for the "Double Fantasy" album. They didn't make it on the original 1980 album "because they thought the continuity (with the other tracks) was bad," he says.

The song "I'm Losing You" later surfaced on an anthology, and Nielsen says Yoko Ono told him, "We inspired John."

"You can't make up this junk," he adds.

5. Nielsen once was lined up to produce a Ringo Starr album, or at least one side of it; David Bowie was to helm the other. "That was another project that didn't happen," he says.

6. Cheap Trick, like so many bands, indirectly owes its existence to the Beatles. At a June news conference to announce the shows, Trick singer Robin Zander noted, "I've been singing Beatles songs since I was 12 years old. That whole British Invasion made me go out and buy a guitar from Rick's dad and put a band together."

Nielsen's father owned a music store in Rockford, Ill. For his own part, Nielsen remembers going to London when he was fresh out of high school in 1968. He bought the "white album" there, as well as a little mono record player to hear it. He listened in a hotel room so cheap it had a coin-operated heater, and resold the record player before the flight back.

Cheap Trick has been playing Beatles-compatible power pop since 1974. They remain one of the hardest-working bands in show business, having recently released their 16th studio album, "The Latest."

The band pulled off the rare feat of playing Las Vegas two weekends in a row under different circumstances: "Sgt. Pepper" comes right after last weekend's MGM Grand tour stop with Def Leppard and Poison.

Nielsen wouldn't mind if the tribute shows -- which also feature the "Abbey Road" closing suite and guest vocals from Joan Osborne and Ian Ball of Gomez -- became a regular thing at the Hilton.

"It's not like we're 21, running around the country. But at the same time, I don't think we want to be, at the twilight of our career, known as a Beatle cover band. We get to do everything."

Contact reporter Mike Weatherford at mweatherford @reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0288.