Cheap Trick: At Budokan
1979
Epic Records
Format I Own it on: Vinyl
Track Listing: 1. Hello There 2. Come On, Come On 3. Lookout 4. Big Eyes 5. Need Your Love 6. Ain't That a Shame 7. I Want You to Want Me 8. Surrender 9. Goodnight Now 10. Clock Strikes Ten
One of the most monumental live albums of all time..Right up there with...
Kabukiband Lives...
Bobby Beard-O and the Blue-Collar Bullets...
Talky Talkbox Comes Alive...
I used to be one of those wiseacres who always had to point out that even though it went Octuple-Platinum, I had never met a single person who had listened to "Frampton Comes Alive." Man, I take that back...I meet them all the time now...Apparently they all went on to become White-Collar Corporate Fifty-somethings...
But forget, Peter Frampton for now...Today we're discussing "Cheap Trick at Budokan," which single-handedly catapulted the band into fame...
With good reason! Listen to it...You put the needle down, a quick guitar scrape, then Rick starts pounding away on that huge A Chord:
"Hello there Ladies and Gentlemen,
Hello there Ladies and Gents,
ARE YOU READY TO ROCK?!"
YES!! Buy that $40 T-shirt!
Blow your doob smoke directly into the Security Guard's face...
But whatever you do...DO NOT LOOK DIRECTLY INTO THE LASER!!! PEOOWWW! PEEEOOOOWW!
Yea, "At Budokan" captures that whole experience so well...And it comes with that big, cool book that's all written in Japanese and stuff...
But the real highlight is all the songs that hadn't appeared on their proper studio albums at this point, like the solid pop-rock song "Lookout," the atmospheric "Need Your Love" and there's even a rousing Fats Domino cover!
I almost count the version of "I Want You to Want Me" as one of the new songs...This is the version that you always hear on the radio and it's radically different than the soft-rock version that appeared on "In Color." In retrospect, it feels like the perfect middle-ground between the nosier outtake version from the first album and the "In Color" version.
There's been other reissues since the 1979 vinyl...Deluxe version that actually have the entire show, rather than the original 42 minute original...
I have no idea why I've haven't checked these out yet...The original version holds such nostalgia for me for some reason...It'd be weird to hear "At Budokan" sequenced differently, or with a different cover...But yea, it does leave you wanting more, so I'll check one of the reissues out one of these days...
In the meantime, let's check out "I Want You to Want Me" by Cheap Trick...Enjoy...
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