Live Friday
Cheap Trick - At Budokan (10/78 in Japan, 2/79 the rest of the world)
Oh what a tangled web we weave when we practice to deceive.
Where to begin. The original 2 LP set was actually recorded in Osaka, not Budokan. However, The Cheap Trick - At Budokan II (1994) completed the Osaka concert and added 3 songs that were recorded at Budokan during the '79 tour.
In 1998 a 2 CD and 2LP version called At Budokan - The Complete Concert was released. The first pressing of the CD set was slightly different then the LP version leading some to think it was the not quite final mix that the LP version seemed to be. Plus, the UK version was done in Translucent "Kamakaze" yellow vinyl. But there's more! For the 30th anniversary they did the entire 1978 concert live in Chicago and 3 of those songs were included on the 4 disc Budokan! which has the 2 CD set, a DVD of an April 28th 1978 Japanese TV performance and a CD of the same.
Even with all of the above the influence of this album is far greater then most know. It is listed in the Rolling Stone top 500 albums, in the 1001 albums you should hear before you die and the album was selected by the Library of Congress for preservation in the United States National Recording Registry for being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".
It is considered on of the first power pop albums that helped pave the way for numerous indie albums and helped bring back rock in the face disco and is considered to be one of the greatest live rock albums ever. Another album that was never supposed to be released anywhere but Japan. But the radio station Promo of From Japan To You caught on and 30,000 copies of the album were imported in about 3 months convinced Epic to release worldwide. It remains their largest selling album.
Below is the Japanese TV show video.
What people here don't know is that the mania for Cheap Trick in Japan was every bit as big there as Beatlemania was here. It far surpassed the Runaways, Deep Purple, The Stones or anybody else for decades. Girls throwing flowers at their feet, passing out, filling airports when they landed. There was an affinity for the cartoon like character Rick Neilson portrayed and it didn't hurt that Robin Zander and Tom Petersson were 2 of the best looking guys in Rock at the time.
