When I was a kid my dad used to go on and on about how Cheap Trick's Live at Budokan is the only good live album ever recorded. He was really insistent about it, and the speech came out whenever I played live recordings.. it was a real punish, but I suppose somewhere in my head I took as some kinda half-truth. Anyway when I was in my twenties I went over to visit and he was playing records, I asked him about Cheap Trick and he said he'd lost the record years ago. So for his birthday the next year, I get him Cheap Trick's Live at Budokan thinking I was gonna get a standing ovation... But he just picked it up, looked at it and went "Cheap Trick hey? They were alright." And I felt insane. I told him about his stories and he was convinced he didn't really care about Cheap Trick. Couple years later, I go to visit and I told him about a live tape I wanted to do and he starts getting all misty eyed and goes, "ah.. a live recording? The only good live recording is Cheap Trick's Live at Budokan"... And I flip out. I tell him the story and he says I'm making it up. I tell him I bought him the record for his birthday and he goes "nah I loaned it to Johnno years ago and he never gave it back" and I get up and grab the record to show it to him... And instead of believing that it was a gift, now he's insistent that Johnno must have given it back when he came to visit. I should add that he's of a perfectly sound mind with an otherwise crystal clear memory so I assumed he was fucking with me, until the other week I was talking to him and he goes, "I was listening to that Cheap Trick album you got me the other day and it's not too bad... I didn't think you'd be into Cheap Trick, but thanks for getting it for me." Completely bonkers stuff. Anyway! I work in a record shop where we listen to every 2nd hand record over $10 before it goes onto the shelves (sometimes a good thing, sometimes you get a collection in with every Jethro Tull LP and I want to die) and lo and behold, Cheap Trick's Live at Budokan appears in the play list. And man.. it fucken sucked.
