Second Time Around

Cheap Trick has spent most of its career in the shadow of the Beatles, but sometimes you gotta draw the line.

When the band returns this weekend to re-create "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" (and some of "Abbey Road," too) with an orchestra, fans will hear something they didn't last fall: Cheap Trick's own hits.

"This time around we've convinced the powers that be it's a good idea for us to do that," singer Robin Zander says of the 20 shows at Paris Las Vegas between today and July 31. "Cheap Trick always of course, wants to do Cheap Trick songs."

You can't blame presenters for subscribing to the theory of scarcity creating demand. Zander and his bandmates -- Rick Nielsen, Tom Petersson and Bun E. Carlos -- have been durable road warriors throughout their 36 years.

But the "Sgt. Pepper" album? Even the Beatles never planned to tour with it. That freed the 1967 landmark to expand the vocabulary of rock 'n' roll, with rich instrumentation and production techniques transcending the limits of the day.

"All these songs everyone has heard and grown up with, that they've never heard live. That's special I think," Zander says.

The Hollywood Bowl first invited the band to fulfill the concept in 2007, and the group reprised "Sgt. Pepper Live" for a concert DVD the next year. There was talk of a tour, but the band and producer Bill Edwards both would be happy if the "Pepper" shows became an "only in Vegas" attraction between regular Cheap Trick tour dates.

"It's more economical this way," Edwards says of not having to rehearse new orchestras in each city. "It's an enormously challenging show. It's not like you just throw 'em the music and make it work. You have to make it all fit.

"If the audience receives it well and everything goes well, it could be a longer-term arrangement that hopefully lasts for many years," Edwards says.

Once again, the shows will be overseen by Geoff Emerick, a recording studio engineer on the "Sgt. Pepper" album.

With Emerick, "We've got all the information on what happened in the studio to make this work," Edwards says. At one point in mixing the concert DVD, Edwards says they were listening to the original album for comparison and couldn't place a tapping noise on one song. It took Emerick a day of thinking about it before he remembered, "John wanted this little microphone by his foot so he could tap his foot."

The summer shows do trim the budget -- and make time for the Cheap Trick songs -- by losing the guest stars from last fall. Besides, Zander proved he could bend his vocals to fit the occasion.

"What I really tried to do is capture the essence of what those guys do. I could never pretend to be them. I'm not them, I'm me," he says. "Plus, those songs call for different things. I think Cheap Trick is like that on our own songs. I kind of look at it like an actor would look at acting, where you sort of play the part."

The larger challenge, he says, was negotiating that fine line between slavish imitation and getting too loose with the interpretation.

"It's not easy to do," Zander says. "I guess it comes a little easier for me, just because of my affection for the Beatles over the years. I've already sort of got it in my heart, my soul and my brain to be able to sing those songs in my own way without destroying them."

But there is one greater challenge. Can he top the outfit he wore in October? The one with a white captain's hat and waistcoat trimmed by red rhinestone cuffs?

It was not stolen from the Liberace museum, but the creation of "a designer who's worked for us a long time," he says. "I told her to go to the hilt with it, and she did."

"It's Las Vegas, isn't it? You've got to sort of out-do the doers," he says with a laugh.

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