Starting in 2007,
Cheap Trick made it something of a habit to perform a full-length in-concert cover of
Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, celebrating the album's 40th Anniversary and getting them ever closer to their goal of actually being
the Beatles. Orchestras were hired, guests invited, a splendid time was had by all, and now in 2009, the December 12, 2007 show is available as either a CD or DVD, mixed by
Geoff Emerick himself, the engineer who worked with
the Beatles on
Pepper. This unabashed, unapologetic fan worship results in a record that sounds pretty much exactly like the original, only with a little more aggression in the rhythms and some funny accents in the vocals, including
Joan Osborne sounding like
Chrissie Hynde on "Lovely Rita." Everything, including the encore of
Abbey Road's album-closing medley, is fun. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine