This Next Song Is The First Song On Our New Album

Pretty much every time I hear the word “Japanese” I think of one thing.

Cheap Trick‘s Live at Budokan. Don’t you? Most notably when Robin Zander (or it could be Rick Nielsen, as I am not too up on my Cheap Trick voices) yells while introducing Can’t Hold On, “The first thing I did when I came to Japan, was to buy a Japanese guitar!” The best part about it is how slow he talks. Was it the ludes or the fact that his Epic record rep told him that the Japanese girls who don’t understand one ounce of English will better understand it at a slower pace? Rockford, Illinois‘s finest.

Words can’t define this record. It’s a gem. And really never hit me until I got the Complete Concert version – you know the remastered double disc set. It’s just pure rock and roll. Great pop song writing on the cusp of excess. But then again that excess that is present is what was needed with the rock of that time. It went hand in hand in the late 70s. And man o’ man can you hear the Beatles influence on this record. Not to mention where the Smashing Pumpkins got half their sound. Ahhh Cheap Trick.

And I wouldn’t have it any other way.