It Was All Gravy (At Budokan: The Complete Concert - Cheap Trick)

Member Name: The Operator

Product:	At Budokan: The Complete Concert - Cheap Trick
Date:	04/02/02 (82 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Umm...cheap?

Disadvantages: No.

JOHNDMR asked me to do this months ago. Well John, I've finally got around to doing it but only because I had to buy the damn thing first and remind myself how good it is. I only had this on yellow vinyl, see, and I couldn't play it anymore. As luck would have it, this version's much much better.

I reckon that this is just about the best live album ever recorded and I can't believe that only John and I know about it. I've got the Who's "Live at Leeds" (the long one) and Thin Lizzy's "Live and Dangerous". Rory Gallagher's done some storming live albums and the Dylan bloke's done a couple which are rated somewhat highly but his voice gets on my nerves so I don't buy him although I was singing along to "Like a Rolling Stone" when it was on the wireless today; none of them come close to capturing the sheer essence of rock and roll like this one does. You can't do this with Technics decks, wires and a sequencer.

Sorry if I sound a bit biased here but, well I'm older than I was and whereas there are a few old people, even some older than me who like this modern nonsense and even dance to it, I like guitars and drums and bass. And shouting. And bum notes and LOUD. Computers wreck music. They get in the way of soul and feeling and the sheer enjoyment of performance. Now I'm not saying that trance or techno, garage, outside lav or whatever has no place - If you really want to dance to a mindless repetitititititive beat, go ahead. I'll tape the fridge motor for you and you can amplify that. It's 50 hz and I think that corresponds to g . Slow it down, speed it up, do what you want with it. It's a noise like a computer makes. Computers don't make mistakes, they only do what we tell them. Even if you programme one to make mistakes randomly it won't be the same because the mistakes won't be where they ought to be. Computers don't do encores, they don&
#39;t do requests and they can't (yet) respond to the crowd.

No, for sheer out and out excitement you can't beat watching a band at the point when they gel not only with themselves but with the crowd. It's like any performer and OK, I'll even include djs in this, you've got to connect with your people - even a good dj can ruin a night out if he can't mix by guessing or feeling what the crowd wants (predictable mind-numbing and soulless repetitiveness. Oh goodness, I'm sorry - I couldn't help it).

So what's so good about this then? Well it's exactly what I've outlined above. The four chaps in the band get up there and do their thing like they've done hundreds of times but this time they really nail it: in front of a crowd of thousands of pumped up and screaming Japanese teenagers who've been watching them perform on telly and listening to their records all week on the radio. Anybody who's ever done anything on stage in front of an appreciative crowd knows what this can do to your performance and you really feel that here the fans are helping to make the music as well as the band. More of that later.

Cheap Trick are so vastly underrated. They are a pure out and out pop-rock band with leanings toward the slightly heavier and the mad. Good solid back line of Bun E. Carlos on drums (Tonight, Matthew I'm going to be an insurance salesman from Pinner - he really is the most unlikely looking rockstar ever) and Tom Petersson on bass with all the hair and rock-god good looks. I say good looks advisedly - he can have a tendency to look like Steven Tyler and he's, well...not as attractive as his daughter, is he. Up front on rhythm and vocals is long-haired blond boy Robin Zander but the real front man is the archetypal idiot-savant guitar-hero-fool and wayward genius, Rick Nielsen. Well he would be archetypal if there were more like him but he is pretty much unique. There are very few R
ick Nielsen impersonators I would imagine. Who else would bother to have a five necked guitar made? I do have a Rick Nielsen plectrum though but, so do millions of other people because while he's playing the things fling out from his fingers as though they're drops of sweat. My mate Paddy said when I showed him the pick back in '79 that it didn't matter, it had no consequence, it wasn't the one that Hendrix used to write Little Wing or Clapton first played the riff to Layla with. I treasured it just the same. I digress slightly, Nielsen is larger than life on stage but on this record he's another part of the band and he's a damned fine guitarist to boot. There's no showboating, no-one's an out and out hero on this album, they all muck in by the sound of it but Nielsen's playing is marvellously understated. Listen carefully and you can hear the little noodles and occasional break creeping out of the mix; there's just enough to break up the pounding rhythm created by the other three.

There is quite a story surrounding this album, probably only of real interest to fans but it's a glorious illustration of how times have changed as regards technology and the "art" of marketing.
They had released three albums prior to this and although well received and fairly good sellers, they didn't burn everything up before them. For some reason though they had become huge in Japan. The fourth album, Dream Police, was on the point of being finished as the band set off for a short promo tour to Japan in April '78 as a way of acknowledging that particular fan base. There were to be two dates at the Budokan hall on the 28th and 30th of April and a live album especially for the Japanese market. Their arrival in Japan apparently was uncannily Beatle-esque, taking the airport authorities by surprise as thousands of screaming Japanese shoolgirls threatened to upset Nippon law and order.
The album was release
d in October. It contained the poppier elements of the set as this was thought to be more appealing to the Japanese. Back home in the US, word had slipped out and a few djs on the east coast started to play tracks from the album. Demand for the album, only available on import at something like $16 was tremendous. The producer of this '98 re-issue, Bruce Dickinson, was working in a record shop at the time and recalls a CBS sales executive being stunned by the sales of the import at his shop and demanding to make a 'phone call to Epic A & R. Epic sent out a promo 12" containing 7 tracks from the album to radio stations countrywide and the floodgates opened culminating in the release of the album in the States at least, in February 1979. Goodness knows what our copy is then, it's in "Kamikaze Yellow" vinyl but dated '78. Bought in February '79 after seeing them live in Canterbury that month. £4.79 from the Longplayer in Ashford. No one knew who they were here but although there were only about 200 people in a venue capable of holding about 1000, the atmosphere created was amazing. The album sold over 4 million copies in the US alone and reached No 4. Not bad for a bit of a promo shot. "Dream Police" was understandably delayed.

There have actually been three versions. As I mentioned above, the original release was tailored towards the Japanese market and was really only the hits, if you could call them that. There was a second version in 1993 which was released quietly and included three songs from a 1979 follow-up tour. This 1998 version addresses the historical timeline errors and includes the original 9 tracks culled from the original release and shuffles them so that this is a true approximation of the running order for one of the two original concerts. You can't see the joins either.

There is little point in analysing each track, they are all marvellously executed. The band really were at the top
of their craft, unsurprising as they had gigged constantly from '75 onwards about 250 times a year. They craft their songs carefully and the musicianship is second to none. They are not called "The Beatles of The Mid-West" for nothing (thanks to Gideon Coe, ex GLR presenter and huge CT fan for that one). I'll just pick out a few highlights before you get bored.
The album opens with the band in the wings about to go on, the MC announces them and immediately the buzz-saw riff of "Hello There" their traditional opener heralds their arrival. It's a brilliant opener. It gets the crowd on their feet immediately as the band just states musically that they've come to party. The set closes with the mirror "Goodbye Now" but that only serves to keep you juiced up for the encores. "Come On, Come On" follows, another crowd favourite although whether the crowd can actually hear anything is debatable - you can certainly hear them.
The playing is near faultless and Zander's voice is fine form - he's an interesting vocalist, bending his voice from sheer pop on say "I want You To Want Me" to threateningly sinister as on "Auf Wiedersehen" and his shouting of "Suicide". "Surrender" is as wonderfully played as ever with its teenage fantasy/angst lyrics about weird mum and dad rolling on the couch played out against a pure pop backing.
Disc 2 is almost pure party, relentlessly cheerful riffing and almost wholly upbeat. There's a stunning version of "Ain't That a Shame" and a rousing "California Man" but the highlight is their one really huge hit, "I Want You To Want Me" which was thrown in as an afterthought and as a sop to their audience as the band had grown tired of performing it at home. Little did they know it would provide one of those classic moments of live music when, as they reach the chorus of "Didn't I, didn
9;t I, didn't I hear you crying?" the crowd, as if with one voice and completely in tune and in time, echo with "Crying, crying, crying".
Oh, pure pop bliss. That's just magical and it's what live music is really all about. Go on, be a kid again and treat yourself. Have fun.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Running order 1978

A Side
Hello There
Come On Come On
Look Out
Big Eyes
Need Your Love

Side B
Ain't That A Shame
I Want You To Want Me
Surrender
Goodnight Now
Clock Strikes Ten

~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~

Running Order 1998

Disc 1
Hello There
Come On, Come On
Elo Kiddies
Speak Now Or Forever Hold Your Peace
Big Eyes
Lookout
Downed
Can't Hold On
Oh Caroline
Surrender
Auf Wiedersehen

Disc 2
Need Your Love
High Roller
Southern Girls
I Want You To Want Me
California Man
Goodnight
Ain't That A Shame
Clock Strikes Ten

Additionally the CDs contain two video tracks from the concert: On disc 1 there's Surrender and on 2, Auf Wiedersehen. And thank you people who matter, because they've actually mentioned that they can be played on a proper computer, sorry, Macintosh. Anyone who knows me, knows that this matters.

Oh, and the title comes from Bun E. Carlos musing on the unexpected success of an album that wasn't meant to be.

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