Meeting CHEAP TRICK in 1988

Cheap Trick performed at Bogart’s in Cincinnati, Ohio on February 24, 1988.

I met them backstage before the show. As I recall, several people including myself walked right in the backstage door and talked to Cheap Trick in their dressing room that night. Only my second time seeing the band and I had certainly never met them before, I was totally starstruck. Rick Nielsen was awesome, insisting we sit down and help them eat the food in their dressing room. Deli trays and cheese trays and stuff like that. This was 2 months before the Lap Of Luxury album was released, so they were yet to see the huge success of "The Flame". Rick was HILARIOUS, cracking jokes non-stop, referring to the album as "Lack of Luxury". He asked if we were familiar with the album's producer Richie Zito. "Do you know that puke?" And he made a crack about Bryan Ferry that I shouldn't repeat but I will: Basically he said to singer Robin Zander, "Oh, he'd REALLY like YOU!" A thinly veiled reference to Ferry's sexual orientation. This 2-minute YouTube video is a live performance from a month later in Daytona, Florida: