Introduction

CHEAP TRICK (1977)
1) ELO Kiddies; 2) Daddy Should Have Stayed In High School; 3) Taxman, Mr. Thief; 4) Cry, Cry; 5) Oh Candy; 6) Hot Love; 7) Speak Now Or Forever Hold Your Peace; 8) He's A Whore; 9) Mandocello; 10) The Ballad Of TV Violence (I'm Not The Only Boy).
If you find it strange to see a band that released its debut album in 1977 sound so close to the glam-rock style of the first half of that decade, rather than be seriously influenced by the punk and New Wave styles of the present — do keep in mind that the band's guitarist and primary song­writer Rick Nielsen began playing in local Illinois bands as early as 1961 (being just 13 years of age), and that his first record, cut when he and Cheap Trick's future bassist Tom Peters­son were still playing in a band called Fuse, was released in 1967. Furthermore, as I began re­listening to their stuff a while ago and asking myself the question, «so who could really have been the biggest influence on these guys?» — eventually an inner voice called out SLADE!, and lo and behold, the next thing I re-learn is that the very name Cheap Trick actually comes from their going to a Slade concert and thinking that they used «every cheap trick in the book» while playing. New Wave? Post-punk? Forget it. You don't have to resort to chainsaw buzz or futuristic electronic bleeps and bloops if you want to be a rock star — not in 1977, you still don't.
Image was of serious importance to Cheap Trick in the early days of their popularity: the well-described contrast between the «two pretty ones» (blonde rhythm guitarist and lead vocalist Robin Zan­der and black-haired bassist Tom Petersson) and the «two nerdy ones» (baseball-cap-clad, five-neck-guitar-wielding lead guitarist Rick Nielsen and bookkeeper-turned-drummer Bun E. Carlos) did the job fairly well, not to mention Nielsen's additional antics on stage. On the other hand, one should not overestimate that popularity, either — Cheap Trick's studio albums did not chart too high until the success of Budokan, and in those early days, they did not chart at all, because the band's sound was almost anachronistic for 1977. (Curiously, they pretty much repea­ted the trajectory of KISS — who could not make commercial headway with their studio records, but finally broke it big with a live album).
So carry yourself back all the way to February 1977 and witness the birth of the underground power-pop band Cheap Trick — loud rock guitars and catchy vocal pop hooks all the way. What was it that made them special after all those years of guitar-based pop-rock bands? No single element, but a clever combination that allows to easily identify all their influences, but cannot be judged as a simple sum of all of them. Melody-wise, they'd sworn complete allegiance to the Beatles that they would carry through all the better and worse days of their career (and even on this debut, there are at least two totally blatant tributes to the Fab Four — ʽTaxman, Mr. Thiefʼ is quite transparent, but there's also the way Robin yells out "anytime at all, anytime at all" on ʽHe's A Whoreʼ that seems to be quite intentional); but sound-wise, they're suckers for a thick, crunchy hard-rock sound that owes much more to Slade, T. Rex, and other glam outfits of the early 1970s, and this really makes them the primary torch-bearers for the term «power pop» (which can be reasonably well applied to such earlier acts as Big Star and Badfinger as well, but neither Big Star nor Badfinger ever had even half as much pure power as Cheap Trick).
To this we should necessarily add a pinch of intelligence and witty sarcasm: unlike KISS, Cheap Trick were interested in rising above the level of Lusty Caveman, and although the self-titled debut does have its share of straightforward love ballads (ʽMandocelloʼ) and libido blast rockers (ʽHot Loveʼ), the majority of the songs either address social issues (ʽELO Kiddiesʼ, ʽTaxman, Mr. Thiefʼ) or complain of general personal insecurity (ʽSpeak Now Or Forever Hold Your Peaceʼ). And even ʽHot Loveʼ, when viewed in the overall context — for instance, as a precursor to the maniacal ʽBallad Of TV Violenceʼ — can hardly be taken without an ironic grain of salt. (Then again, it's all in good tradition: somebody like Marc Bolan, for instance, would always retain an ironic angle to his «sex idol» image, rather than playing it straight and stupid).
For Cheap Trick fans, the self-titled debut often has a special relevance, since it was produced by Aerosmith's producer Jack Douglas — and, consequently, is viewed as «less polished» and, there­fore, «more authentic» than the rest of their Seventies' output, produced by Tom Werman. This may be objectively right — there's a little more crunch-and-rip to the guitars here, perhaps — but it is not necessarily a plus: Cheap Trick were a composition-based pop band first, and a rock'n'roll beast only second, so what really matters is how well written the songs are, and in that respect, I'd say that Cheap Trick has a larger share of underdeveloped filler than its two nearly-flawless follow-ups (no wonder, actually, that none of the songs from Cheap Trick made it to the original Budokan album, and only two appeared on the complete edition of the concert).
That does not mean that the band had to «learn» songwriting craft after this album, but it did learn more discipline — while a song like ʽDaddy Should Have Stayed In High Schoolʼ (not because daddy has always been a moron, but because daddy is still hunting for young flesh) certainly looks less «safe for work» than the band's later, less titillating, stuff, musically it is little more than a forgettable mess of distorted chords that can never come together into a solid riff. If you want yourself a really scary pedophile anthem, go back all the way to the Stones' ʽStray Cat Bluesʼ: this one's pretty sloppy in comparison. I am also not a fan of the lumbering slow blues trot of ʽCry Cryʼ (seems like an attempt to write something in late Beatles-era Lennon style à la ʽYer Bluesʼ, but Zander is too theatrical a personage to ever match John) — and not only do I not have the vaguest idea why ʽMandocelloʼ shares that title despite not featuring either a mandolin or a cello, but I also think it is their least effective ballad from the «golden period». Too slow and lumbering for a rocker, too harsh for a ballad, and the bassline seems to have been lifted from AC/DC's ʽHigh Voltageʼ, which is quite confusing.
But even with all the imperfections, more than half of Cheap Trick is stellar. ʽELO Kiddiesʼ is a brilliant introduction to the world of the band — the heaviness of the rhythm guitar and the pop melo­dicity of the lead line, the ambiguity of the lyrics (and the title — nobody really knows why ʽHello Kiddiesʼ eventually turned into ʽELO Kiddiesʼ and what it is exactly that Jeff Lynne has to do with kids who "lead a life of crime"... unless, of course, one thinks it a crime to buy a brand new copy of A New World Record), the lead pipes of the lead vocalist (that "you haven't got much TIIIME!... you know they're out to get you!!!!" is one of the greatest bits of white-guy scream on record the other side of Roger Daltrey) — it's, like, welcome to a radical reinvention of what «power pop» can be all about. Likewise, ʽTaxman, Mr. Thiefʼ brilliantly alternates between the paranoid distorted guitar lines of the verses and the Beatlesque chorus that delivers its simple message that nothing much has really changed in the last ten (eleven) years.
Arguably the single most ass-kicking moment of the album is the guitar punch that opens ʽHot Loveʼ, a song that hair metal bands of the next decade would probably kill for, but how many of them would be able to do it just right? Raw, rioting, restless rhythm guitars and a psychedelic lead guitar tone, the tightest rhythm section imaginable, lyrics that avoid unnecessary hypersexual clichés, and a lead vocalist that can scream at the top of his lungs and somehow not come across as a pompous imbecile? And just a few steps down the road, followed by ʽHe's A Whoreʼ that pretty much does it again, but with a bit rougher language? (The desperation in Zander's voice as he yells "I'M A WHORE!" as if he were being cast for The Exorcist is priceless).
Hilariously, ʽThe Ballad Of TV Violenceʼ opens with a five-note riff that is pretty much lifted from Uriah Heep's ʽGypsyʼ — except Cheap Trick are actually a good band, and instead of han­ging the entire song on one riff, they quickly depart from it into the direction of an eerily dance­able boogie that tells the story of a mass killer, with Zander going into full-scale Charlie Manson mode and the whole band doing sort of a ritualistic dance on the skulls of the fallen. Probably the most provocative track of their career, even if rock musicians have always tended to be fascinated by serial killers (from ʽMidnight Ramblerʼ to ʽGary Gilmore's Eyesʼ), but Cheap Trick work extra fine in «dark clown» mode, so this is a particular highlight. All in all, a magnificent debut, even despite some rough songwriting edges, and, I might add, one of the brightest beacons of hope for the «old school of rock'n'roll» in an era when conservative heavy rock riffage was going out of fashion, eclipsed by punk rock and the New Wave of heavy metal — so, naturally, a thumbs up without any reservations.
IN COLOR (1977)
1) Hello There; 2) Big Eyes; 3) Downed; 4) I Want You To Want Me; 5) You're All Talk; 6) Oh Caroline; 7) Clock Strikes Ten; 8) Southern Girls; 9) Come On Come On; 10) So Good To See You.
All right, so this album is neither as crunchy and raw as its predecessor (because they changed producers) nor as subtly deep as its follow-up (because they temporarily ran out of truly titillating subjects) — but it is still the perfect Cheap Trick album, simply because it has no filler what­soever. This is where Nielsen's songwriting powers reach a genuine peak, as does his art of genre-hopping (and no, it's not nearly true that Nielsen only knows two subgenres of pop music: the «Lennon Pop» and the «McCartney Pop» genres, even if they do get unfairly superior coverage on this record — he also knows all the subgenres that are derived from those two!!)
For starters, there's probably no single other song that would explain all the essence of Cheap Trick more effectively than ʽHello Thereʼ does in one and a half minutes. On the surface, it is a silly, generic arena-rock winding-up of the fans — "would you like to do a number with me? would you like to?.. WOULD YOU LIKE TO?..." — but the use of "hello there, ladies and gen­tle­men", hardly an appropriate turn of phrase for a rock'n'roll arena, inverts the message and places the whole thing under heavy irony: it's like they're a Las Vegas act that accidentally ended up on a much bigger stage, and now they have to address the rock'n'roll crowds in the «prover­bial» rock'n'roll manner. That's the band's double nature in a nutshell — they're formally respec­ting the arena-rock cliches, but they're also mocking them at the same time — in the same way that some of the more intelligent hair metal bands, like Extreme, would do this with their genre a decade later. And if I am not mistaken, that brief guitar solo at the end is lifted almost directly from Bowie's ʽHang On To Yourselfʼ, which is just as symbolic: a retro-nod from the current generation of ironic glam-rockers to the Grand Deity of ironic glam-rock himself.
But just so that you do not forget that Cheap Trick have a real musical heart behind all the irony and all the «cheap tricks», the next song is ʽBig Eyesʼ, which, on the guttest of gut levels, is my personal favorite Cheap Trick song of all time. Yes, it is obviously far from the most intelligent one, or the most sophisticatedly arranged one, but there are few, if any, things in the world that beat the absolute MONSTER of a riff that kicks in right after the brief arpeggiated guitar intro, and then loyally reappears, doubled by the vocals, in each chorus, the "I keep falling for those big eyes..." riff. God, what a monster — this is basically Tony Iommi borrowed for power-pop usage, a caveman declaration of voodoo lust that screams «bewitched» and «brutal» at the same time. The contrast between Zander's angry screechy vocals in the verses and the group's collective «dazed and confused» harmonies in the chorus is priceless by itself, but it is largely the riff that turns the song into the single Top Headbanging moment of the band's career. And, believe you me, only very few hard rock acts in the world are capable of such instantaneous magic.
Cheap, simple, delectable thrills like these are the word of the day — if ʽHello Thereʼ and ʽBig Eyesʼ are not enough for you, then we will close the deal with ʽI Want You To Want Meʼ, Niel­sen's intentional attempt to write a very lightweight pop song that would send the genre up, pretty much like ʽHello Thereʼ sends up the crowdpleasing rituals of the arena. People like comparing it to McCartney, but McCartney took those simple love songs more seriously and he'd probably never write anything quite as simplistic, not even in 1977 — this is more like, I dunno, Osmonds territory or something, and yet, still unbeatable, largely due to the "didn't I see you crying?" bridge where you have the first phrase as tender and caring, the second one as worried and fear­ful, and the third one as determined and heroic (only the fourth one, reprising the first, kind of breaks the flaw — I always keep thinking of the last one as slightly underwritten. Mail the whole thing to Macca for some perfection polish?). So, classic rock radio overplay aside (and who listens to these stations nowadays, anyway?), that makes the single best pure pop hook in Cheap Trick history closely following up on the heels of their single best heavy rock hook. Everything's de­lightfully insincere, of course, but who cares?
The other big hit was ʽSouthern Girlsʼ, Cheap Trick's personal contribution to the series of an­thems to collective female attraction that already included such obvious influences as ʽCalifornia Girlsʼ and ʽSeptember Gurlsʼ: Trick's song manages to resemble both of them in spirit (and a bit in form) without being obviously derivative of either, but also, as could be expected, a little ironic in nature (after all, the sincerity of a bunch of Illinoisans' love for «Southern girls» might be put under doubt, not to mention that they hadn't even been more to the South than Oklahoma by early 1977). It is still a near-perfect power-pop creation: a puffed-up musical march that builds up a stereotype and then proceeds to demolish it — not that any actual Southern girl would be happy if she were addressed with "Southern girl, you've got nothing to lose!"
But that's just the hits anyway, and then there's everything else, never letting down the quality angle. ʽDownedʼ? One of their finest early quasi-psychedelic numbers — Zander's "downed, out of my head...", arching out of your speakers, really feels like he means it. ʽYou're All Talkʼ? It's like Stevie Wonder's ʽSuperstitionʼ gone hard rock and sped up: cool, angry, funky bass and guitar interplay, not to mention the hilarious contrast between Zander's pleading "please don't go... please don't go away from me" and pissed-off "you're all talk! you're all talk!" — more of the «confused caveman» emotional angle. ʽOh Carolineʼ? Perhaps the most Foreigner-like of the lot, but in the general tongue-in-cheek context of the album, even its falsetto "go to the end of the world... FOR YOUR LOVE!" feels like a post-modernist deconstruction of the arena love ballad rather than «the real thing». ʽClock Strikes Tenʼ? Their fastest, head-spinningest piece of rock­abilly gone heavy and mastodontic. ʽCome On Come Onʼ? Until I bothered to listen to the lyrics, I thought it was one of those "people get together" anthems that stimulate the listener to action, like breaking a few chairs or pulling a hunger strike on the White House lawn, but it turns out that the song is actually an instigation to copulation, which makes those "come on, come on... yeah yeah, yeah yeah..." group harmonies even more hilarious (and gross), though I can, like, totally envision Rick Nielsen in his checkered suit and baseball hat as a perverted voyeur.
By the time the album tells you that "I want you to stay" in Zander's most seductive falsetto on the last track, you might just be tempted to follow the admonition and play it from the beginning all over again — at the very least, it is clear that In Color has fully capitalized upon the promise of the self-titled debut, and that Cheap Trick have pretty much saved the day for old school classic rock. They may have been too derivative for their home country to want them: the album sold significantly better than Cheap Trick, but still barely charted, and neither did any of the singles. Yet they did gain enough prominence to earn plenty of bookings in Europe and in Japan, and time only worked in their favor: these days, it's even hard to guess that the record was pro­duced in 1977, with not a single trace of the contemporary punk sound (sure sounds a lot like the New York Dolls in places, but in 1977 that was yesterday's news already), let alone disco. What really matters, though, is how great those pop hooks are, song after song after song: these guys sure knew how to be consistent, if only for a brief while, and that particular lesson that they most likely did learn from The Beatles really separates them from the majority of their contemporaries. So, quite an exultated thumbs up here.
HEAVEN TONIGHT (1978)
1) Surrender; 2) On Top Of The World; 3) California Man; 4) High Roller; 5) Auf Wiedersehen; 6) Takin' Me Back; 7) On The Radio; 8) Heaven Tonight; 9) Stiff Competition; 10) How Are You; 11) Oh Claire.
You know what's a creepy song? ʽHeaven Tonightʼ is a creepy song, and the fact that it's placed right in the middle of an album of typically tongue-in-cheap-trick tunes, or even the fact that Nielsen himself called it a «parody» on anti-drug songs is able to do anything with the creepiness. I would be the first to agree that Cheap Trick is essentially a «B-level» band, one whose inherent sense of humor always prevented it from descending into the true depths of human psychology and emotionality (and when they'd lost that sense of humor in their Eighties shit period, it was too late to go deep anyway) — but no first-rate B-level band can exist without at least one or two A-level tunes, and ʽHeaven Tonightʼ is simply it.
The song has been compared to everything, from the Beatles' ʽI Want Youʼ to Led Zep's ʽKash­mirʼ, with both of which it does share melodic properties, but the vibe is different — it is distinct­ly funereal, a more-than-perfect soundtrack to the death of a junkie. Just a few transpositions, and the magical-mystical-Sufian ʽKashmirʼ vibe becomes a funeral march... but the most shiver-sending moment is, of course, when Zander lowers his voice down to that ominous whisper — "would you like to go to Heaven tonight? would you like to go to Heaven tonight?"... where ʽHea­venʼ signifies both the heavenly delight of a really solid dose of the stuff, and its direct con­sequences. A parody? This should be played at frickin' drug rehab centers — the only song I know that could compare to this directly in impact is the Stones' ʽSister Morphineʼ. Oh, and did I mention the instrumental banshee wail in the coda? I am still not completely in the clear what instrument that is — a musical saw? Or just a synthesizer imitating one? Regardless, it's as per­fect a symbolization of the poor soul finally getting on its way to Heaven as possible.
And no, the rest of the album is nowhere near that heavy on the senses, even if it is very frequently heavier on the guitars. For many, Heaven Tonight remains the absolute peak of the band, and I almost concur, except I think that In Color may be just a tad more consistent, if, on the whole, lighter in tone. In a way, Heaven Tonight synthesizes the «rawness» and «titillation» aspects of the self-titled debut with the tightness and pop hooks of In Color, so its greatest songs (title track apart, that must be ʽSurrenderʼ and ʽAuf Wiedersehenʼ) are true pop masterpieces, and both of them sound as fresh and relevant today as they did nearly 40 years ago. In particular, ʽSurrenderʼ, with its theme of «hip unity» between teens and parents, has, in fact, only become more relevant with age, as parents and grandparents these days can often give their kids lessons in hipness ("Mom and Dad are rolling on the couch... got my Kiss records out" almost sounds sentimentally naive these days!).
And ʽAuf Wiedersehenʼ — now there's a tongue-in-cheek song for you! If you ever contemplated suicide, this song could actually present a cure: the very concept of suicide is sent up so brutally by these guys (basically, the message is "you want to kill yourself? no, really? wait, lemme just grab the popcorn!") that the very act of suicide, through this angle, becomes a moro­nic theatrical gesture rather than a true solution to your problems. Cue solid Dylan lyrical refe­rence (not that ʽAll Along The Watchtowerʼ ever endorsed suicide, but it was a dark tune all the same), an Alice Cooper-ish riff brimming with swagger and contempt, and some of Zander's wildest screaming ever captured on record, and you got yourself a kick-ass positive social statement (which, I have no doubt, quite a few idiots in their time may have mistaken for propaganda of suicide).
The rest of the record lags and sags a little bit in between the three big babies, although, truth be told, there is not a single bad tune — some are just okay, like ʽHigh Rollerʼ, a slow catchy cock-rocker based on a riff with AC/DC chords played Grand Funk style; or ʽOn The Radioʼ, which lifts its fun ascending melody from the Kinks' ʽPicture Bookʼ and goes for the same style of light-hearted nostalgia; or the music hall influenced ʽHow Are Youʼ, which is even more McCartney-esque than ʽI Want You To Want Meʼ — a fun, catchy, friendly song, but one that would pretty soon disappear off the radar (because who the heck would want to have to perform two ʽI Want You To Want Meʼs in a single show?). One song that did go on to become a show stopper, sur­prisingly, is a loyally performed cover of The Move's ʽCalifornia Manʼ (with a bit of ʽBronto­saurusʼ thrown in for good measure) — a perfect barrelhouse boogie for the boys, but certainly a bit unoriginal; Nielsen's glam-rock guitar soloing in the middle, with almost every single rock and roll cliché thrown in, is probably the high point.
In any case, even the least of the lesser numbers is still perfectly enjoyable thru and thru, and the album thrives on quirky little hooks and gimmicks that keep the interest up and running — even the final track (ʽOh Claireʼ), a one-minute arena-rock screamer with "oh, konnichiwa!" as the only lyrics: it is, at the exact same time, a send-up of their «tradition» of recording an ʽOh C...ʼ song on every album (ʽOh Candyʼ, ʽOh Carolineʼ), made even funnier by the fact that it is a pun on "Eau Claire, Wisconsin" — and an odd «preview» of the Budokan concert, perhaps recorded in the anticipation of the upcoming Japanese tour. (Actually, the song was not listed at all on the LP cover, being one of those ʽHer Majestyʼ-style little surprises... alas, it is impossible to write a single Cheap Trick review without a bunch of Beatles references, is it?).
Yes, Heaven Tonight is a monster of an album — and the last in the classic trilogy to work wonders with pretty much the exact same formula. It's almost a pity that already on the next album they'd start tinkering with the formula — and initiating their downfall in the process — but in 1978, there was still no end in sight to the power and the glory. An enthusiastic thumbs up: this is absolutely required listening for all lovers of heavy pop music.
AT BUDOKAN (1979; 1998)
1) Hello There; 2) Come On Come On; 3) ELO Kiddies; 4) Speak Now Or Forever Hold Your Peace; 5) Big Eyes; 6) Lookout; 7) Downed; 8) Can't Hold On; 9) Oh Caroline; 10) Surrender; 11) Auf Wiedersehen; 12) Need Your Love; 13) High Roller; 14) Southern Girls; 15) I Want You To Want Me; 16) California Man; 17) Goodnight; 18) Ain't That A Shame; 19) Clock Strikes Ten.
US audiences really love their pop rock LIVE! and kicking, don't they? Two years after the toils and troubles of KISS were rewarded with their commercial breakthrough as a live band, the same thing happened to Cheap Trick who, ironically, opened for KISS in the early days: what could not have been achieved with the three classic studio albums (although, truth be told, each of those charted higher than its predecessor, so that the groundwork was laid well), was achieved with a live album — which, even more ironically, was never even intended for domestic release in the first place, so that the first US buyers got it as a Japanese import.
Nostalgic reasons aside, At Budokan remains great fun after all these years, but neither in its original form as released in 1979, nor in its expanded form (the complete concert, first released on CD in 1998 and since then having become the default version) does it really «destroy» the studio versions of the songs, as is so often claimed. The thing is, Cheap Trick are most certainly a «pop rock» band in the truest sense of the word, combining catchy pop hooks with dirty rock energy in brotherly proportions, but when it comes to the sacred question of «Beatles or Stones?», there's no getting out of it, and the Trick do love the Beatles more than the Stones — and this sets the predicament: unlike the Stones or the Who, Cheap Trick are studio creators first and live enter­tainers second. And even when they are live entertainers, the emphasis is very much on «entertainment» rather than «live rocking» — Rick Nielsen's baseball caps, checkered jackets, wild faces, and poly-necked guitars matter as much for the Cheap Trick show as does his ability to produce grumpy distorted tones.
This is why I normally prefer to listen to the studio versions of all these songs — yes, even the famous live performance of ʽI Want You To Want Meʼ, with the music hall piano replaced by Nielsen's rock'n'roll guitar, does not make nearly as much sense as the studio version, where the climactic bit of "didn't I, didn't I, didn't I see you crying?" is properly followed by the echo of another "crying", rather than the echoing yell of several thousand Japanese fans. And every time that Nielsen or Zander make a playing or singing mistake — and it does happen occasionally, although, to give them their due, much less frequently than after their fame had finally gone to their heads — it makes me cringe much more than any time the Stones or the Who make mistakes during their shows. The curse of the pop hook, yes indeed, sir.
Nevertheless, all of this criticism should be taken lightly — all I'm saying here is that it might be wise to begin your enjoyment of Cheap Trick with the holy trilogy of 1977-78 before assessing them as a live band, and only then proceeding to see how, at the expense of muddying up their sound and occasionally sacrificing the sharpness and subtleties of the pop hooks, they compen­sate for this with extra wildness. Needless to say, everybody is working their ass off, not the least of all «bookkeeper drummer» Bun E. Carlos, cracking at the snare with an amount of brutality worthy of the (not yet late) John Bonham; even if he cannot get quite the same «depth» of the sound, the power and melodicity of his drumming is enough to make him feel like a perfectly equal member of the band, and, perhaps, more vital to its overall live sound than both the bass of Tom Petersson and Zander's rhythm guitar.
Meanwhile, Nielsen lays on the distortion real thick — not in a nasty metallic way, no, rather in the naughty glammy «gonna raise hell» kind of way. For this release, he does not get any particu­lar spotlight (in the 1970s, at least, he used to have a very lengthy «masturbatory» section as the introduction to ʽBig Eyesʼ, Angus Young-style, but you won't find it here), the closest probably being the extended solo in ʽNeed Your Loveʼ, a preview of the track that would eventually be recorded for Dream Police; however, that solo is clearly experimental rather than self-aggrandi­zing, and the whole thing, with Zander's dreamy falsetto and its odd contrast with the almost «slowed down proto-thrash metal» riffage of the song, is arguably the most complex and psyche­delic performance of the show, a definite highlight largely due to Mr. Nielsen's making his guitar screech, squirm, and grumble in half a dozen different ways.
And then, of course, there's the whole «show» thing which, these days, can be fully enjoyed with pictures (if you do plan on getting Budokan, by all means get the edition that contains the DVD of the concert — it's trimmed, but still worth every minute of it), but is still very well felt even through just the sound. The show begins with ʽHello Thereʼ (of course) and ends with the reprise ("it's the end of the show / now it's time to go"), which naturally brings on to mind the concept of Sgt. Pepper, and even though nobody in the band is wearing uniforms, all of the members repre­sent certain artistic and actor-like stereotypes, with Zander as the prototypical «rock idol», sway­ing the audience with excitement ("I... want... you... to want... ME!"), Petersson as the black-haired evil twin / mirror image of the white-haired Aryan god, Nielsen as the mischievous trickster ("the first thing I did when I got to Japan... WAS BUY A JAPANESE GUITAR!"), and Bun E. Carlos as the «working guy turned rocker» (well, you probably can't really hear that last one, but still, there's something about Bun E.'s drumming that suggests an «office guy gone all eccentric on us» style).
In any case, there is absolutely no denying that not a single «classic rock-style» band around 1979 could seriously compete with these guys in terms of generating arena-rock excitement — not only did they retain and amplify all the power of early glam rock, but they were able to throw in the tongue-in-cheek element, with plenty of humor, which would make At Budokan much better suitable for the modern listener, I think, than, uh, Peter Frampton, for instance. They do all the stuff that cheesy rock entertainers are supposed to do — like, for instance, trading brief solo passages between each other in the coda section of ʽAin't That A Shameʼ — but all the clichés are executed with an ironic angle to them. There's so much humor and irony here, in fact, that it really makes you wonder how on earth they managed to lose it all so quickly in the accursed Eighties — here, at Budokan, it seems as if they simply could do no wrong.
Just for the record, some songs here cannot be found on regular studio LPs: the oh-so-Beatlesque merry pop rocker ʽLookoutʼ was a B-side, and the slow shuffle of ʽCan't Hold Onʼ is a parody on the broken hearted blues genre that does not work too well, I think. ʽNeed Your Loveʼ, as I already said, would soon be recorded in a definitive version for Dream Police, and the encore features a rousing version of Fats Domino's ʽAin't That A Shameʼ that's right up their alley: just as old man Fats never fooled anybody with that whole "my tears fell like rain" stuff, neither do Cheap Trick, concentrating on the humorous side of rock and roll rather than its sentimental over­tones. In fact, there's not a single shred of genuine sentimentality on Budokan, Zander's beautiful blonde hair notwithstanding. And they end the show with a mammoth version of ʽClock Strikes Tenʼ which, for a change, I do prefer to the original studio track — if only because it does not choose to end on the silly kiddie "imagine what we're doing tonight..." repetition, but rather on the manly-rambunctious "gonna get on down, gonna get on down" part.
A major thumbs up, of course, even if I probably wouldn't place this into the Top 10 of my favo­rite live albums (I think that the only «pop» band with a guaranteed spot on that Top 10 could be Fleetwood Mac — and, for all of Nielsen's wonderful qualities, he was never even half the guitarist that Lindsey Buckingham could be). But really, the worst thing that could be said about the record is that it made Cheap Trick into superstars — and, as superstars, they would very quickly begin to transform into an ordinary superstardom machine, behaving in accordance with the laws of the music market. Who knows? Without Budokan, there may have been no The Doc­tor, or no collaborations with Diane Warren, or none of those other unspeakable evils of the Dark Age of the Cheap Trick era. But then again, in the 21st century we're free to ignore the evils and focus on the good stuff, so enjoy this bit of Japanese magic and forgive them their later trans­gressions, or, rather, just forget about them.