In 1978, Cheap Trick had barely made a ripple in the United States (though their song “Surrender” from their third album Heaven Tonight<\/i> gave them their first minor success on the Billboard<\/i> singles charts).<\/p>\n
Japan, however, was a completely different story. The lads from Rockford, Illinois were treated almost as the second coming of the Beatles\u2014something that, honestly, still confounds me. It\u2019s not that Rick Nielsen and crew weren\u2019t deserving of such accolades, but that it\u2019s difficult for me to see how Japanese audiences latched onto the power-pop that Cheap Trick played with such enthusiasm.<\/p>\n
Cheap Trick At Budokan<\/i> captures that frenzy at its height\u2014and, as a result, finally allowed Cheap Trick to break out in the States. It\u2019s a respectable performance that shows their studio efforts translated well to the live stage, and remains a good portrait of where they were early in their career.<\/i><\/p>\n
One quick note: This review is of the original album. Additional songs from this concert were released on Budokan II<\/i>, and combined on Cheap Trick At Budokan: The Complete Concert<\/i>. I\u2019ll get to these eventually.<\/i><\/p>\n
Look, I\u2019ll be up front: I don\u2019t understand why Cheap Trick stirred up Beatle-esque screaming reactions from their audiences in Japan. That\u2019s not a knock on the band, by the way. What I do <\/i>know is that through these ten songs, what is captured is an audience having a great time\u2014though the band might just be having even more fun.<\/i><\/p>\n
Just listen to how they get into songs like \u201cCome On, Come On,\u201d \u201cBig Eyes,\u201d the ubiquitous single \u201cI Want You To Want Me\u201d and their cover of \u201cAin\u2019t That A Shame.\u201d The audience feeds off the energy from guitarist Nielsen, vocalist\/guitarist Robin Zander, bassist\/vocalist Tom Petersson and drummer Bun E. Carlos… but the band likewise feeds off the crowd\u2019s energy. As a listener, it\u2019s hard to not get caught up in that emotion.<\/i><\/p>\n
Even the knowledge that this is an incomplete concert that wasn\u2019t actually recorded at Budokan (but was still recorded in Japan) doesn\u2019t take anything away from this set. The thing, though, is that we\u2019ve probably heard \u201cI Want You To Want Me\u201d so often on classic rock radio that we could be sick of it. In the setting of Cheap Trick At Budokan<\/i>, though, it does seem to take on a different life\u2014and, in its natural surroundings, is a much better fit.<\/i><\/p>\n
And that, kids, is where Cheap Trick At Budokan<\/i> succeeds. It takes a band in its element, at the height of their popularity (even if it wasn\u2019t in the States), and it captures the essence of the group. There\u2019s a reason why this became the first truly successful album for Cheap Trick in the States\u2014namely, it was so damned infectious. And, nearly 50 years later, it still is.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":35213,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[5736],"rating":[5613],"class_list":["post-47096","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-cheap-trick","rating-rating-a-minus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/47096","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=47096"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/47096\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35213"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=47096"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=47096"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=47096"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}