The Hideaway: An Album A Day #27: CHEAP TRICK AT BUDOKAN [1978]

For this, the final An Album A Day feature for this run, HERC tampered with the otherwise random process just a bit: today's pick was originally supposed to be featured yesterday but when research turned up the fact that it was actually recorded 35 years ago today, HERC pushed it back a day and drew again.

The music of Cheap Trick and HERC go way back. Cheap Trick At Budokan was the first live album and the first Cheap Trick album HERC ever bought. The concert was also filmed. The album's origins can be found in a promo only sampler released in the United States in late 1978. With tracks drawn from a Japanese only live album that was moving a lot of imports here in the States and the decision was made to test the waters with radio listeners. It was a success and a US release date for Cheap Trick At Budokan in February 1979.

"I Want You To Want Me" is on the In Color album and had been released as an unsuccessful 1977 single in the US, the track found new life onstage in a sped-up version and as the first single from At Budokan. It climbed into the Top 10 on the Hot 100 and sold more than a million copies and in turn drove millions of fans to buy the live album, which peaked at #4 with sales of over three million. Such was the old paradigm in the music industry when radio play and singles driving single and album sales.

"This next one is the first song on our new album..." Before the Beastie Boys sampled that line for their track "Jimmy James", it was known solely as the intro to "Surrender", the third track on Side Two of At Budokan. As a single off of 1978's Heaven Tonight, the studio version of "Surrender" was Cheap Trick's very first Hot 100 single.

In 1993, Budokan II was released featuring the other nine songs from the same April 28, 1978 concert that spawned Cheap Trick At Budokan plus three songs recorded at Budokan the following year on the Dream Police tour.

Five years later, for the original album's 20th Anniversary, At Budokan: The Complete Concert was released as it had been performed with all 19 songs in their correct sequence with a remaster by Vic Anesini.

For the 30th Anniversary, Cheap Trick sweetened the pot by adding a DVD of the original Japanese concert film - they even made a promotional video for the set.

On each of these anniversaries, the band's current lineup performs Cheap Trick At Budokan in its entirety and this year's 35th Anniversary is no exception as the band is performing the album in New York and then Los Angeles.

HERC is not a big fan of live albums in general but a few have established themselves as essentials here in the HERChives. Although the original ten-song album will always have a very special place in his heart, HERC has to admit that the fully-restored show is growing on him with each listen.