"This... next... one... is... from... our... first... album..."

"I think you know this one," Robin Zander carefully enunciates as he speaks to the boisterous crowd in April 1978 at Japan's Budokan hall. "It's called 'Speak Now...' and it starts with Mr. Tom Petersson on the bass."
Kerstin and I grabbed iPods and hit the sidewalk for a big walk this morning.
I listened to "Cheap Trick at Budokan: The Complete Concert."
The two-disc set collected all of the songs Cheap Trick performed at their career-making gig in Japan and placed them in the correct set order.
It has been written before, but the hysterical, Beatlemania-type Tokyo crowd does function almost as a fifth band member. Their wall-of-sound screams electrify the already great songs.
It made for a bracing soundtrack to my walk.