Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

CHEAP TRICK & X

Bring Nearly a Century of Rock History to

September 9th, 2026 Review Ron Lyon

There was nearly a century of rock history onstage Saturday night at Pacific Amphitheatre, as Cheap Trick and Los Angeles punk pioneers X turned an unexpected pairing into a fitting look at two very different branches of American rock and roll.

The September 5th bill wasn’t originally supposed to happen this way. X had been scheduled to appear with Joan Jett & The Blackhearts before Jett was forced to withdraw following surgery for a fractured vertebra. Cheap Trick stepped in, creating an interesting pairing with roots stretching back almost five decades.

In 1977, Cheap Trick released its first two albums and played Hollywood’s Whisky a Go Go. At roughly the same time, X was taking shape in Los Angeles. Nearly 50 years later, both bands remain remarkably recognizable versions of themselves.

For X, that still means Exene Cervenka, John Doe, Billy Zoom, and D.J. Bonebrake – all four original members. With the band’s name and 1977 looming behind them on the backdrop, the significance was hard to miss. X is approaching its 50th anniversary in 2027 with the four musicians who established its identity still sharing the stage.

There wasn’t much ceremony involved – X simply went to work.

Their 19-song set reached across the band’s history, including “Your Phone’s Off the Hook, But You’re Not,” “Sugarlight,” “The Once Over Twice,” “The New World” and “White Girl,” while “Smoke & Fiction” represented the band’s most recent chapter and 2024 album of the same name.

The closing stretch was particularly effective. “Los Angeles” led into “Nausea,” followed by “Johnny Hit and Run Paulene” and “Motel Room in My Bed,” before X finished with its long-standing cover of The Doors’ “Soul Kitchen.” It was a closing run rooted heavily in the band’s earliest years, and in Los Angeles itself.

Then came Cheap Trick.

Formed in Rockford, Illinois in 1973, Cheap Trick has already passed its own 50-year mark. Robin Zander, Rick Nielsen, and Tom Petersson remain at the center of a band whose music has always occupied its own territory somewhere between power pop, hard rock and punk attitude.

Zander took the stage in his familiar black Dream Police-style hat and an All Washed Up shirt, visually connecting two very different eras of Cheap Trick. The band opened with “Clock Strikes Ten” and worked through early favorites “ELO Kiddies,” “Lookout,” and “Big Eyes.”

Time has inevitably taken a little speed off the edges, but Cheap Trick can still rock.

During “Ain’t That a Shame,” Zander strapped on his distinctive orange Rickenbacker while Nielsen worked a slide guitar. For “California Man,” Nielsen switched to one of his unmistakable yellow guitars before surveying the amphitheater and telling the crowd, “You are a fine-looking audience.”

Cheap Trick also made room for the present. “The Riff That Won’t Quit,” from the band’s 21st studio album, All Washed Up, proved a genuine rocker, with Nielsen switching to a sunburst Les Paul and Petersson wielding his classic white 12-string bass.

Nielsen kept things loose between numbers. Spotting a FEAR T-shirt prompted talk about Lee Ving, followed by Cheap Trick’s recent run of unexpected substitute gigs — first stepping in when ZZ Top couldn’t perform in Los Angeles and now replacing Joan Jett in Costa Mesa. Nielsen joked that if another band wasn’t feeling well, they should give Cheap Trick a call. The audience responded with an awkward mixture of groans and laughter. Quintessential Rick Nielsen.

Robin Taylor Zander, Robin’s son and a familiar touring presence with the band, took over lead vocals for “High Roller.” Petersson followed with his own vocal spotlight on “I Know What I Want,” the Dream Police track he originally sang in 1979.

Then came the difference between a deep cut and a song that has become part of the culture.

The opening of “I Want You to Want Me” brought the audience to its feet. “Dream Police” and “Surrender” kept them there, providing the inevitable late-show sing-alongs.

Cheap Trick returned for an encore of “Auf Wiedersehen” and “Goodnight.” Nielsen appropriately said goodbye with one of his signature double-neck guitars strapped over his shoulder, one last unmistakably Cheap Trick image to end the night.

What began as a replacement booking ultimately produced a pairing that made historical sense. X and Cheap Trick emerged from different corners of the 1970s, but both absorbed the urgency and attitude of the period in very different ways.

Nearly five decades later, neither came to Pacific Amphitheatre simply to commemorate the past. Both played new material alongside songs that made their reputations, with the musicians who established their identities still at the center of it all.

SHOW PHOTO GALLERY

by Ron Lyon Photography

TO FOLLOW

SID 260909 | TRACI TURNER | EDITOR