More Cheap Trick

• You’ll find STUNNING sound on this true classic from Cheap Trick, with Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) sonic grades or close to them – exceptionally quiet vinyl too
• This one is doing everything right, with deeper bass, less distortion, grungier guitars, and the kind of LIVE ROCK and ROLL ENERGY that Cheap Trick is known for
• One of only two Cheap Trick albums that cuts it for us sonically and musically (the other being Dream Police)
• 5 stars: “With their ear-shatteringly loud guitars and sweet melodies, Cheap Trick unwittingly paved the way for much of the hard rock of the next decade, as well as a surprising amount of alternative rock of the 1990s, and it was At Budokan that captured the band in all of its power.”

The first pressings of this record come with an OBI strip and a Japanese style lyric and photo booklet, giving the impression that this is a Japanese pressing. But it’s clearly domestic, so kudos have to go to Epic Records for doing a wonderful imitation that would practically fool any record collector.

Most of the copies we have to offer will come with the booklet, while the OBI strips are long gone.

This is probably the only Cheap Trick record most casual fans will ever need. The live versions of ‘Ain’t That A Shame’ and ‘I Want You To Want Me’ are AS GOOD AS IT GETS. Where would Classic Rock Radio be without catchy pop like this? Nowhere man!

What the best sides of this Live Classic Rock Album have to offer is not hard to hear:

• The biggest, most immediate staging in the largest acoustic space
• The most Tubey Magic, without which you have almost nothing. CDs give you clean and clear. Only the best vintage vinyl pressings offer the kind of Tubey Magic that was on the tapes in 1978
• Tight, note-like, rich, full-bodied bass, with the correct amount of weight down low
• Natural tonality in the midrange — with all the instruments having the correct timbre
• Transparency and resolution, critical to hearing into the three-dimensional studio space

No doubt there’s more but we hope that should do for now. Playing the record is the only way to hear all of the qualities we discuss above, and playing the best pressings against a pile of other copies under rigorously controlled conditions is the only way to find a pressing that sounds as good as this one does.

What We’re Listening For on Dream Police

• Energy for starters. What could be more important than the life of the music?
• Then: presence and immediacy. The vocals aren’t “back there” somewhere, lost in the mix. They’re front and center where any recording engineer worth his salt would put them.
• The Big Sound comes next — wall to wall, lots of depth, huge space, three-dimensionality, all that sort of thing.
• Then transient information — fast, clear, sharp attacks, not the smear and thickness so common to these LPs.
• Tight punchy bass — which ties in with good transient information, also the issue of frequency extension further down.
• Next: transparency — the quality that allows you to hear deep into the soundfield, showing you the space and air around all the instruments.
• Extend the top and bottom and voila, you have The Real Thing — an honest to goodness Hot Stamper.

TRACK LISTING

Side One

Hello There 
Come on, Come On 
Lookout 
Big Eyes 
Need Your Love

Side Two

Ain’t That a Shame 
I Want You to Want Me 
Surrender 
Goodnight 
Clock Strikes Ten

AMG 5 Star Rave Review

While their records were entertaining and full of skillful pop, it wasn’t until At Budokan that Cheap Trick’s vision truly gelled.

Many of these songs, like “I Want You to Want Me” and “Big Eyes,” were pleasant in their original form, but seemed more like sketches compared to the roaring versions on this album. With their ear-shatteringly loud guitars and sweet melodies, Cheap Trick unwittingly paved the way for much of the hard rock of the next decade, as well as a surprising amount of alternative rock of the 1990s, and it was At Budokan that captured the band in all of its power.