The intimate Strat Theater might seem like an unusual venue for Cheap Trick, Rock and Roll Hall of Famers who seldom play any sort of residency or extended engagement.
It happened once in Las Vegas, back in 2009, when the band played nine shows at the Las Vegas Hilton, a celebration of The Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band complete with a symphony orchestra and special musical guests.
“It’s not something we normally do, because we are rarely—OK, never—in the same place for long,” says founding Cheap Trick bassist Tom Petersson, who sounds like he’s hoping this week’s launch of a four-show run at the Strat could turn into a longer residency. “They asked, we were available and one thing lead to another. It’s always more convenient to get to stay in one place, and it’d be a nice change of pace for us.”
The 800-capacity venue at the iconic north Strip property is more of a classic Vegas showroom than a rollicking concert hall, but it has proven its versatility recently with Sammy Hagar’s residency. Rock aficionado and show producer Adam Steck has made a quick impact on the room through his company SPI Entertainment’s entertainment partnership with the Strat.
As significant as these concerts are for the venue, they’re also a big deal to Petersson, who had open heart surgery last year and hasn’t played a proper Cheap Trick show in many months due to his recovery and the pandemic.
“I feel great now, but I felt fine before. It was just a weird thing where we found a birth defect and had to repair it. I had no symptoms,” he says. “Having the operation was like some sort of weird dream, and it kind of feels like it didn’t happen. But I get to leave the house now. I’ve been doing my exercises at home with my bass on, and it looks ridiculous, but who cares? I’m at home.”
Petersson, who says he’s excited to return to the stage with singer Robin Zander, guitarist Rick Nielsen, drummer Daxx Nielsen and guitarist Robin Taylor Zander, teases the Strat shows as “straight-ahead, Cheap Trick rock shows”—with a cool twist. “We’re going to do four nights and four decades. The first night will be [music] from our first 10 years, and so on just like that. For die-hard fans, it’ll be interesting, because we’ll be able to do all sorts of weird songs we don’t normally do.”
Then again, Cheap Trick doesn’t normally do any one thing. The band released its 20th studio album, In Another World, in April, continuing an impressively prolific five-year period. Few rock outfits from their generation are steadily touring and recording new music these days.
“We really do records for our own enjoyment,” Petersson says. “We do stuff that we think sounds good to us. We don’t know what people want to hear or even think about that, maybe just slightly. And we’re always thinking about the next one, getting done with a record and then OK, what’s the next thing, what else do we got?”
CHEAP TRICK February 25-26, March 4-5, 9 p.m., $75-$125. Strat Theater, tickets.thestrat.com.
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