100% American Rock-n-Roll at it's best. That's the sum of four guys from Rockford, Illinois who call themselves Cheap Trick. Silver has been twenty-five years in the making; a Silver anniversary live recording, celebrating the bands hard work ethics in their home town. What a special concert it was. Silver is a compilation of not only Cheap Trick's music, but a bit of their life's splendor as well. Silver features a song from every record, members of the Rockford Symphony Orchestra, the Harlem High School Choir, the Phantom Regiment Drum Corp, Rick Nielsen's and Robin Zander's children, Jon Brant, Slash, Billy Corgan, Art Alexakis and many more. The 29-song disc plays like a "who's who" of American Rock-n-Roll. As I listened to it for the first time, I found myself mumbling "oooh… I love this song," over and over again, to pretty much every song on the disc.

Rick Nielsen's crunchy guitar can best be described as "abundant." His sound fills every recording 110% of capacity. I've found that this sort of sound (also see Jimmy Page and Pete Townsend) is at it's best live, on stage. This is obvious with the first few bars of the first song "Aint that a shame." Rick has played with so many greats, From Alice Cooper to Gene Simmons solo album, Tom "the inventor of the 12 string bass" Peterson's distorted bass, is like a combination of rhythm guitar and bass guitar all rolled in to one. Cheap Trick has always had a unique sound that is difficult to mimic by any standard, mostly due to the clever thundering of Tom's 12-string attack. He must be a speaker techie's nightmare! Tom has also appeared with bands like Dwight Yoakam and Concrete Blonde. Bun E. Carlos has been laying down the completely solid beat that is the backbone of Cheap Trick's catchy, foot stomping, head bobbing way of life, like the heartbeat of the band. I remember when the triple platinum live album At Budokan was released, every drummer I knew promptly adjusted some bit of their playing to the rock solid, non-flash business of Bun. The voice of Robin Zander is, in my opinion, one of the best in Rock history. Cheap Trick songs are quickly recognizable by the raspy melodies that Robin seems to blast out with ease. Silver is perhaps the culmination of Robin's many years of work. John Lennon thought enough of Cheap Trick to hire them to be his band on his last few albums. How's that for a resumé booster!

So many songs on this disc are not only great songs, but they are fantastic versions of them as well. 5,000 plus concerts have preceded this show, yet Cheap Trick played it like they do all of their shows: like their lives depended on it. At one point in the concert, following a duet between Robin and his daughter, Nielsen says, "he got goose bumps." This is an authentic feeling, as I found myself with the same. Some of my favorites on this disc would be "The Flame", "Voices", "Time Will Let You Know", and of course, the classics "I Want You To Want Me", and "Surrender".

The disc is also an enhanced disc, meaning there's some content for the computer savvy as well. On disc 2, there's a video for the song "He's A Whore". I would guess it was shot around 1977, and it's in a small, dank and dimly lit club. While there's no "shredding" lead solo, the song itself is shred. There's also link on the disc to a "secret" page on their website (http://www.cheaptrick.com), with a bunch of neat stuff, as well as a sneak peak at the Silver DVD (The full concert in surround sound), with the song "Time Will Let You Know".

To sum this disc up is easy. If they ever re-release this in the future, it could be titled "Idiots Don't Own This." This double CD set is as much a rock staple as their At Budokan disc. Don't miss this great experience, and celebrate a true American Rock N' Roll legend's 25th anniversary. While the guitar work on this wouldn't fall into the "shred" category that John Petrucci or Steve Vai would produce, the energy of this band's efforts tip the shred scale like no other. The "classy" and polished performance recorded here renders the disc a true masterpiece from a producer's standpoint. I read a review on Amazon.com that labeled the sound as "boomy," as though it was a defect. "Boomy" is like a breath of fresh air with so many over produced, digitally drowned CD's that are becoming the norm of live recordings these days. Yes this disc IS boomy, and that's one of the qualities that make it kick ass!

Reviewed by Les Robertson

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