Cheap Trick to be among headliners in Darrington

Rick Nielsen, a co-founder of the band Cheap Trick, has four grown kids ranging in age from 18 to 32, a solid home life in Rockford, Ill., with his boutique-owner wife, Karen, and a heap of perspective along with his years.

Like most baby boomers, he has matured with the years. But the difference between the band mates and most people is that their maturing is on public record.

"I'm a child of the '50s," said Nielsen, 57. "I saw TV go from one to three stations, from off at 10 at night to cable."

Nielsen, band co-founder Tom Petersson, vocalist-guitarist Robin Zander and drummer Bun E. Carlos will come to the Darrington Rock Festival on Friday with their music on the upswing, thanks to younger artists discovering their old hits and cable TV's yawning need for more product.

Lindsay Lohan, Dwight Yoakam and Chris Isaak have recorded the band's music. Nielsen wrote the theme song to "The Colbert Report" on TV's Comedy Central. The band's music is on "That '70s Show." Nielsen has been on the David Letterman, Conan O'Brien, Don Imus and Drew Carey shows.

"Got personality — that's me," he joked.

Nielsen said Friday's concert will have a sampling of new music and the band's classics.

That's true of many of the groups at the festival, which has drawn thousands of concertgoers to Darrington the past several years. Darrington Bluegrass Music Park — called the Darrington Amphitheatre for the rock festival — features a stage facing Whitehorse Mountain and has room for campers, tents, blankets and lawn chairs.

Scheduled tribute acts such as Pink Floyd Lasertainment and Jimi Hendrix imitator Randy Hansen keep classic legends alive, while real-deal war horses like Randy Bachman of the Guess Who and Bachman-Turner Overdrive, and Marty Balin and Slick Aguilar of Jefferson Airplane and Jefferson Starship, have survived rock's hazards and thrived.

Cheap Trick's current members have been together since 1974, and they're talking about reissuing more of their material like their 1977 album "In Color," remixed with more arrangements.

"Rockford," their newest, is their 15th studio album and 28th official release.

"It's about our town, our roots, playing in a garage band, honing our music and writing skills," Nielsen said.

It was in Rockford, Ill., where Nielsen and Petersson started their first band, Fuse. Nielsen still has a 66-cent royalty check from the group's one album.

After that album and a European tour, they retooled in Rockford in 1973 and changed the band's name to Cheap Trick, going on to build a reputation first as an opening act and later a headliner.

Long guitar riffs, electronica and raucous-yet-literate lyrics kept the band sounding fresh through the decades, with tune after tune, many of them hits — "I Want You to Want Me," "Voices" and "Dream Police" — plus catchy tunes such as "Clock Strikes Ten," "Southern Girls" and "Busted," as well as newer songs.

There were hints of Asian harmonics that made them best sellers in Japan, notably producing the 1979 album "Cheap Trick: At Budokan," based on the band's 1978 concerts there.

Rolling Stone magazine lauded the band for its "ability to craft an instantly catchy power-pop song."

"Success," Nielsen said, "is the fact we're still doing it. We're still making new records. We're proud of what we did 30 years ago and what we did 30 minutes ago."

Diane Wright: 425-745-7815 or dwright@seattletimes.com