Kid Rock: 'They were exactly what we needed, a garage band in sheep's clothing', for Cheap Trick - 2016

8 April 2016, Barclays Center, Brooklyn, New York City, USA

Has anyone been keeping tabs on what the fuck has been going on here tonight? Quick recap in my mind ... Who knew Lars Ulrich, the fucking drummer from Metallica, was such a great speaker? Right? Awesome. Then we've got Ice Cube telling people to stay in school and then the drummer from Chicago turns out to be the fucking badass: "Fuck the establishment! I'll do what I want!" As long as we're keeping it real, I'd like to really quickly address the issue of drugs in America. If you do drugs, kids, there's a good chance you're going to ruin your life.

But there's also a pretty good fucking chance you'll end up in a band and be rich and bang hot chicks.  Here's a little secret about bands: We all think we're great live. There's not a band in this room or in the world that doesn't think it's really a live band. You think you can rip the roof off of any room. You think you can make a basement club feel like the Garden. And you think you do it better than anyone else. Then you go and see Cheap Trick.

That's when you think, "Man, we kind of suck. I gotta to step up my game." They're a club band, a bar band, a working band, every sense of those words. They're relentless, precise, powerful. If she's tight, they're tighter. 

It's a little innuendo. ... When disco and soft rock had taken over our radio – thank God I wasn't alive then – they were exactly what we needed, a garage band in sheep's clothing. They had a punk soul, a pop heartbeat and Beatles ambitions. They even worked with George Martin. And he said Cheap Trick was his favorite band to work with that wasn't from Liverpool. I didn't write that line. You can't not watch them. Their frontman is a matinee idol who can growl, croon or swagger. And the guitarist looks like a Teddy Boy on acid. ...

They were always onstage, every throwaway gig, every photo shoot, every interview. They worked the room like it was Soldier Field. ...

Cheap Trick was so big, so loud, so fast that it took a live album to catch the fury. "Surrender," "I Want You to Want Me." These are great songs, but live, they became anthems. It took us a while to figure it out. They were made in the USA, but Japan caught on before we did. A lot of bands think, "We're big in Japan." I'm fucking big in Kentucky. But Cheap Trick is the only one they call the American Beatles. After that, the world exploded for them. It look like success came out of nowhere, but trust me, they worked for it. Of course they did. They've got Midwestern heart.  

They've got Illinois shoulders. That's why ... more than 40 years later, 40 fucking years, and more than 5,000 gigs, they're still going strong. They've been on the road. They've been knocked down, but they've never stopped and they're still out there racking up the miles and playing every show like it's their first. You don't think so? These crazy fucks got three more gigs this week.  

Recycling shit, I'm not that great. I'm a rapper – I sample.  Maybe it's that Midwestern work ethic and maybe it's because as they put it, "We're too dumb to quit." Either way, we're glad they put in the hours. So I'm honored to induct, from Rockford, Illinois …

 

Steve Martin: 'There’s only one thing that could have made tonight more special to me', Tribute to Frank Capra, AFI Life Achievement - 1982

Aired 4 April 1982, Los Angeles, USA

I guess of all the people here tonight, I share the most memories with Mr Capra.

For he and I have known each other for over eighty years.

We’ve worked together, played together, and made many films together. So many I can’t even remember any of their titles.

There’s only one thing that could have made tonight more special to me, and that’s if this dinner had been in my honour.

I’d like to read a quote of Mr Capra’s: "An onion can make you cry. But there’s yet to be invented a vegetable that can make you laugh".

Jon Stewart: 'He empties the tank every time', Kennedy Center Springsteen tribute - 2009

December, 2009, Kennedy Centre, Washington DC, USA

I am not a music critic. Nor historian, nor archivist. I cannot tell you where Bruce Springsteen falls in the pantheon of the American songbook. I can not illuminate the context of his work or his roots in the folk and oral history traditions of our great nation. But I am from New Jersey, and so I can tell you what I believe, and what I believe is this: I believe that Bob Dylan and James Brown had a baby. Yes! And they abandoned this child. As you can imagine at the time - interracial, same-sex relationships being what they were - they abandoned this child on the side of the road, between the exit interchanges of 8A and 9 on the New Jersey Turnpike. That child is Bruce Springsteen.

I didn't understand his music for a long time. Until I began to yearn. Until I began to question the things I was making and doing in my own life. Until I realised it wasn't just about the joyful parade on stage and the theatrics. It was about stories of lives that could be changed.

I was working in a bar in New Jersey as you would imagine; Central Jersey right off route 1. And every night, when I closed the bar, I would get in my car and I was driving at the time – a 1976 off-brown Gremlin. The Gremlin was a car that was invented for two reasons: 1) birth control for young males; and 2) it was invented so that the Pinto wouldn’t feel so bad about itself.

But I would get in my car every night and would put in the music of Bruce Springsteen, and everything changed. And I never again felt like a loser. When you listen to Bruce’s music, you aren’t a loser. You are a character in an epic poem about losers.

But that is not the power of Bruce Springsteen. It is that whenever I see Bruce Springsteen do anything, he empties the tank – everytime. And the beautiful thing about this man is that he empties that tank for his family, he empties that tank for his art, he empties that tank for his audience, and he empties it for his country. And we, on the receiving end of that beautiful gift are ourselves rejuvenated, if not redeemed, and I thank you.

On screen video

'The song writers who inspired me were searcher,' he said. 'Who spoke to our lives and our dreams, I searched for stories about the people I knew. In a small Jersey town life was factory jobs, making ends meet.'

[Bruce Springsteen – Thunder Road]

The screen door slams
Mary’ dress waves
Like a vision she dances across the porch
As the radio plays
Roy Orbison singing for the lonely
Hey that’s me and I want you only
Don’t turn me home again
I just can’t face myself alone again

[Jon Stewart:]
But he had a lot of heart and big dreams. And the one thing he was sure of was Rock N’ Roll.

Up and down the Jersey shore, little clubs went crazy for him. Word had gotten out. Something was happening.

[Bruce Springsteen: Tenth Avenue Freeze Out]

1, 2, 3, 4! Get down.

[Jon Stewart:] Source: LYBIO.net
A Springsteen concert is like a carnival ride that leaves you breathless and alive.

[Bruce Springsteen – Born in the U.S.A.]

Born in the U.S.A.
I was born in the U.S.A.

[Bruce Springsteen – No Surrender]

We made a promise we swore we’d always remember
No retreat, baby, no surrender

[Jon Stewart:]
He found himself at the centre of the Rock And Roll Universe. The Boss.

[Bruce Springsteen – Born To Run]

Cause tramps like us, baby we were born to run
Cause tramps like us, baby we were born to run
Cause tramps like us, baby we were born to run

[Jon Stewart:]
But the bigger his success, the more he questioned. For the favorite son of Rock N Roll; growing as an artist, meant taking on the bigger questions.

[Bruce Springsteen – The River]

I come from down in the valley
Where mister when you’re young
They bring you up to do like your daddy done

[Jon Stewart:]
He wanted his songs to bare witness to the hardships and heroism of everyday life.

[Bruce Springsteen – The Promised Land]

Blow away the dreams that tear you apart
Blow away the dreams that break your heart
Blow away the lies that leave you nothing but lost and brokenhearted

The dogs on Main Street howl cause they understand
If I could take this moment into my hands
Mister I ain’t a boy, no I’m a man
And I believe in a promised land

[Jon Stewart:]
“I try to melt my voice in the story I am telling. And when a moment comes in our common history I wanna be there”, he said.

[Bruce Springsteen – The Rising]

May I feel your blood mix with mine
A dream of life comes to me
Like a catfish dancin’ on the end of my line

Come on up for the rising
Come on up, lay your hands in mine

[Jon Stewart:]
Bruce doesn’t just sing, he testifies!

[Bruce Springsteen – Working On A Dream]

I’m working on a dream
Though sometimes it feels so far away
I’m working on a dream
Our love will make it real someday

[Jon Stewart:]
“I’m in the middle of a long conversation with my audience”, he said. It will be a life long journey for both of us by the time we’re done.

[Standing Ovation]