New Cheap Trick 2021 Concert Videos, Plus Updates From Two Solo Projects!!

Before we dive into this weekend's concert previews, here's a new video-heavy post on this Thursday morning, including new preview audio recordings from two solo projects and assorted related updates, but let's start with some very belated new concert videos from  a major concert!

Here's a surprise find many months after the show proper, as seven videos of Rockford, Illinois hard rock/power pop quartet Cheap Trick's opening set at the Goo Goo Dolls concert outside of the St. Ignace Kewadin Casino in August 2021 have made their way online! YouTube user Thomas LaVictor (who also filmed this summer's Bone Thugz-N-Harmony show in the Soo) uploaded these to his YouTube channel in June, and no word on why it took 10 months to post them, but better late than never, especially as he tried to film Cheap Trick's whole set! Despite the pure wattage of content, Thomas' videos aren't fantastic quality, shot from a distant side-stage angle with quiet, muffled audio, but again, he got almost the whole show. The first video (embedded below) features Cheap Trick playing "Hello There", "Elo Kiddies", "Big Eyes", "He's A Whore", and the start of their cover of The Move's "California Man".

The second video features the rest of "California Man", "On Top Of The World", and "She's Tight", while the third video has Cheap Trick playing "If You Want My Love", "Baby Loves To Rock", and a cover of Fats Domino's "Ain't That A Shame" (as led in by a Daxx Nielsen drum solo). The fourth video has the guys playing "Boys & Girls & Rock N' Roll" and "Downed", while the fifth video only has one song, namely their power ballad "The Flame". Similarly, video #6 also has just one song, that being "I Want You To Want Me", with the final video capturing their last three songs, namely "Dream Police" and their encore songs "Surrender" & "Goodnight".  It is worth noting that frontman Robin Zander's son Robin Taylor Zander (who sang lead on "Downed") filled in on bass for Tom Petersson on this tour, who sat out while recovering from open heart surgery. Hopefully he healed up well, and apologies for missing that!

Again, the quality here is mixed, and it's very hard to make out the band on stage from this angle, but kudos to Thomas for filming all of this and uploading it eventually! Cheap Trick are showing their age to an extent but their set was lively and got the crowd on the right foot before The Goo Goo Dolls' headlining set (yes, Thomas filmed almost their whole set too in a similar fashion, but they're not as amenable for the SMS). Give all of his Cheap Trick videos from St. Ignace last year a look above & below!

Next up, here's the latest from Sault Ontario industrial metal project Molten Imp, starting with the surprise reveal on their Facebook page last week that they have pulled out of the Garbageface concert at the temporary Dryer Fire venue on Wilson Street on October 21st. Other than noting that "it's all a learning experience and I promise you I'll be more prepared", project leader Boyd Rendell didn't give a reason for their withdrawal, but note that Boyd never publically revealed Molten Imp's live lineup beforehand. Their exit has been confirmed in new Dryer Fire advertising for the show, and while there's no 100% verifiable metal/punk acts on the bill now (the show has been removed from our listings as such), note that the mystery act No Funeral is a new "indie noise" band from Boyd's old AlgomA bandmate Jamie Vincent, most recently seen with The Dynowaves. We'll let you know if more comes out on them, especially if they trend heavier!

Back to Molten Imp, Boyd turned his personal YouTube channel into a Molten Imp-centric channel (BeeFMouTH content, we hardly knew ye), uploading the six public tracks from their three virtual singles there, so the paid exclusives from the first two remain as such. One non-single track made its way there in August, namely a song named "Kick Rocks" recorded live in studio, and at 6:32, it almost matches each single's full public length alone! A percussion heavy composition with a low grind, guttural Blood Shed-esque growling, and the occasional spacey sound effect, it's an interesting prelude to their third single, so give it a listen below!

Finally, here's some new updates from local hard rock musician Mike McCleary, who has been hard at work on a new instrumental solo album since the spring! Updates on his Facebook page have been sporadic, with Mike making a new home studio along the way, but Mike has reiterated plans to have seven instrumental tracks on the album, three being 7+ minutes in length, with a total length of around 35 minutes. Mike has intentionally not put a timetable on the album, but has praised the writing/recording process and how much fun it has been, which is great to see! Unfortunately, Mike revealed on Saturday that the hard drive he uses to back up his new and old original material (including all of his prior albums) has crashed, and things will be delayed as he tries to recover the files. Hopefully he can get everything saved, it'd be a shame to lose everything so suddenly! Mike doesn't post a lot of videos on social media, but he did post a teaser for the new album back in May, so what can you hear in this one?

The 68 seconds-long video features assorted clips from different songs/phases of the album, as segmented by static so you know when a clip ends and another begins. The image above is a still from the end of the video, heavily implying that Mike is calling the album "Fallout From Midnight Tides" and that this is the cover artwork, but he has not confirmed that in writing on Facebook. What we hear sounds very promising, with some good heavy parts strewn about, so give everything a listen below, and apologies for the delay in mentioning the video on here!

That's all for today, but stay tuned for weekend concert previews on the site next! Thanks everyone!