In Rolling Stone‘s summer tour round-up earlier this season, it was this band that said it would play anytime, anywhere, which is the logic behind, one guesses, using its break from a national Aerosmith tour to play Casino Nova Scotia. (The band made this declaration even after the stage collapsed beneath its members in Ottawa last summer.) Some other facts about Cheap Trick: Bassist Tom Petersson is credited with creating the 12-string bass (we don’t even know what the fourth string is for!); Rick Nielsen has over 250 guitars, including those crazy five-neckers; they’re from Rockford, IL, the same town as the Rockford Peaches from the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League (as dramatized in A League of Their Own) and Cheap Trick is one of Homer Simpson’s favourite bands. All four current members have been there since 1974, ffs. —Tara Thorne
Thursday July 12, Casino Nova Scotia, 1983 Upper Water Street
451-1221, ticketatlantic.ca, $65, 8pm
This article appears in Jul 12-18, 2012.