SXSW update: Cheap Trick to play free show at Auditorium Shores
Obligatory "they want you to want them" reference
Article Tools
This next one is… the first announcement, of our new year of SXSW coverage, which just kicked off this week. Ordinarily we don’t need a reason to mangle quotes from Live At Budokan, but today it’s appropriate rather than merely annoying: The black-and-white-checkered power-pop Weeble known as Cheap Trick has just announced that it will perform as part of a free, BMI-sponsored show at Auditorium Shores on Friday, March 19, during SXSW. It’s the first official confirmation we’ve received from a major headlining act for this year’s festival, as reassuring as a warm hug after those first fitful waves of far-flung acts who probably won’t get their visas together in time, and the weeks of reckless speculating as to whether Pavement or Soundgarden will show up. We’ve still got plenty of that to come, of course, as the official lineup is still at least a week or more away. But in the meantime, it looks like SXSW 2010 has already fulfilled its annual “stalwart nostalgia act” obligations—though to be fair, Cheap Trick has remained more vital than most bands its age, pumping out new albums like last summer’s aptly titled The Latest, and retaining its core membership for an astounding 35 years, despite the allure of low-pressure side gigs (like Bun E. Carlos’ Tinted Windows, which played SXSW last year) or plain old retirement to a comfy chair. And thank God it has, because no rock ’n’ roll fan’s lifetime checklist is complete without hearing “Surrender” live.
