You wanna hear a band about to explode? In June 1977, CHEAP TRICK was in Los Angeles to record their second album, ‘In Color’. To get the band in shape for the record, they booked 5 gigs at the Whisky a Go Go the weekend of June 3.
The result: a series of fire-breathing shows that you can still hear reverberating on the Sunset Strip to this day. KROQ DJ Rodney Bingenheimer introduced the band at the shows, and his memories are clear: ““The Whisky was packed for every show. A lot of girls showed up. It was like the ‘new’ Beatles had arrived.”
Indeed, this concert stand takes its place alongside The Doors in 1966, Led Zeppelin in 1969, and Van Halen in 1977 as among the most notorious shows hosted by the venerable venue.
All of this would be mere legend, witnessed by only a couple of hundred Cheap Trick fans each night, but for the fact that the tapes were rolling courtesy of the Record Plant’s Mobile Unit One for four out of the five shows (and the fidelity and immediacy of these recordings are AMAZING).
But when ‘At Budokan’ hit 18 months later and propelled the band to superstar status, the tapes were shelved.
Now, 45 years later, the whole world can discover what those lucky souls witnessed those nights at the Whisky: that this quartet from Rockford, Illinois was on its way to making rock history.
The ”Live at The Whisky 1977 [Limited 4-CD Set]” contains all four shows in their entirety (well over half completely unreleased), complete.
Limited to 2,000 copies, ”Live at The Whisky 1977 [Limited 4-CD Set]” is already sold out.
Two years before ‘At Budokan’ lodged them in the Billboard Top 10, Cheap Trick were upstart Epic Records signees with one commercially underperforming album under their belt, but enough word-of-mouth clout to land the opening slot on KISS’ 1977 summer tour.
To get into road-warrior shape—and to test-drive songs from their next two studio albums, ‘In Color’ and ‘Heaven Tonight’ — the band booked five shows over a single June weekend at L.A.’s fabled Whisky-a-Go-Go, four of which were recorded on a mobile studio provided by the Record Plant.
But the tapes were put on the back burner once At Budokan blew up.
Though some of these recordings have already turned up on a 1996 box set and a 2020 Record Store Day release, ”Live at the Whisky 1977 4-CD” is the first set to reproduce the residency entirely, complete with wildly varying setlists, guitarist Rick Nielsen’s peculiar stage banter (sample: “This is a real sad song about a friend of ours who killed the shit out himself”) and repeated drunken audience requests for first-album favorite “He’s a Whore.”
Short of a time machine or costly VR headset, these ferocious recordings offer the most vivid experience of what it might have been like to stand directly in front of a PA speaker while Cheap Trick laid waste to a small venue in 1977.
Cheap Trick would introduce refinements like piano and harpsichord on their next studio albums, but the band onstage at the Whisky was still running on electric-guitar malevolence and adrenaline, prioritizing bravado and intensity over proficiency.
Even as they were testing out certain setlist strategies that would soon become permanent features of their playbook—like combining the swaggering “Hello There” and the swooning ”Come On Come On” into a one-two opening hit of anarchy and ecstasy—they were still figuring out how the songs actually go.
On its journey to power-pop immortality, the latter tune soars skyward only to briefly nosedive with a flubbed first chorus. If the Cheap Trick heard on At Budokan was a well-oiled machine, this version of the band ran so hot, they frequently overheated the engine: Each of the Whisky shows is dotted with extended between-song pauses that are long enough to necessitate their own track designations.
But these sorts of gaffes are small prices to pay for the illicit thrill of hearing the Trick in their primordial prime, rampaging through the darkest and most deranged songs in their repertoire: the psycho-glam boot-stomper “ELO Kiddies,” the paranoid lonely-boy blues of “Ballad of TV Violence,” the perverse suicide-encouragement anthem “Auf Wiedersehen.”
Recorded before the radio-friendly likes of “I Want You to Want Me” and “Surrender” made their way into the repertoire, the Whisky sets capture a band forging the missing link between the scathing satire of Sparks and the gnarly essence of the Sex Pistols.
None of the band’s studio recordings truly capture the muscular menace that bassist Tom Petersson and drummer Bun E. Carlos display here. Occasionally, they even teeter on the brink of post-punk: Where the album version of “You’re All Talk” is steeped in southern-rock boogie, the frenetic versions heard here have a serrated disco edge that’s closer in spirit to ESG than ZZ Top.
At the same time, ”Live at the Whisky” also highlights the qualities that kept Cheap Trick at a remove from their punk spiritual kin: namely, a genuine appreciation for old-school rock ‘n’ roll showmanship and craft.
While Cheap Trick’s original songs depict a post-hippie generation of teens stoned on television and corrupted into degeneracy, their cover selections betray a nostalgic reverence that defied punk’s nihilist year-zero ethos.
Certainly, a group eager to jam on songs by Fats Domino (future Budokan centerpiece “Ain’t That a Shame”), Dylan-via-Manfred Mann (“Please Mrs. Henry”), and Jeff Lynne’s pre-ELO psych-pop combo the Move (“Down on the Bay”) weren’t all that concerned about scoring cool points with the CBGB set.
And even in those moments when the Whisky sets threaten to fly off the rails into noisy chaos, frontman Robin Zander activates his inner McCartney like an emergency brake: amid the sludgy spasms and theatrical vocal contortions of “Daddy Should’ve Stayed in High School,” his melodious “ooohs” instantly soothe.
Likewise, the sugar-coated pre-chorus hook he drops into the pugilistic “He’s a Whore” is almost enough to make the song’s contemptuous sleaze-bag protagonist seem sympathetic.
”Live at The Whisky 1977 [Limited 4-CD Set]” is a raw beast, true Rock n’ Roll attitude.
HIGHLY Recommended
06/03/1977 – Early Show
1-1 Rodney Bingenheimer Intro
1-2 Speak Now Or Forever Hold Your Peace
1-3 Elo Kiddies
1-4 Set Break 1
1-5 High Roller
1-6 Southern Girls
1-7 Cry, Cry
1-8 Big Eyes
1-9 Can’t Hold On
1-10 Oh Boy
1-11 You’re All Talk
1-12 Set Break 2
1-13 He’s A Whore
1-14 The Ballad Of T.V. Violence (I’m Not The Only Boy)
1-15 Down On The Bay
1-16 Goodnight
06/03/1977 – Late Show
2-1 Hello There
2-2 Come On, Come On
2-3 Set Break 1
2-4 Oh Candy
2-5 Daddy Should Have Stayed In High School
2-6 Speak Now Or Forever Hold Your Peace
2-7 Elo Kiddies
2-8 Loser
2-9 Taxman, Mr Thief
2-10 Clock Strikes Ten
2-11 Set Break 2
2-12 Big Eyes
2-13 He’s A Whore
2-14 You’re All Talk
2-15 Auf Wiedersehen
06/04/1977 – Early Show
3-1 Speak Now Or Forever Hold Your Peace
3-2 Elo Kiddies
3-3 Set Break 1
3-4 Hot Love
3-5 Southern Girls
3-6 Cry, Cry
3-7 Big Eyes
3-8 Set Break 2
3-9 Ain’t That A Shame
3-10 Oh Caroline
3-11 Oh Boy
3-12 You’re All Talk
3-13 Set Break 3
3-14 He’s A Whore
3-15 The Ballad Of T.V. Violence (I’m Not The Only Boy)
3-16 Down On The Bay
3-17 Goodnight
06/04/1977 – Late Show
4-1 Hello There
4-2 Come On, Come On
4-3 Set Break 1
4-4 Oh Candy
4-5 Daddy Should Have Stayed In High School
4-6 Mrs. Henry
4-7 Set Break 2
4-8 Violins
4-9 Taxman, Mr Thief
4-10 Clock Strikes Ten
4-11 Set Break 3
4-12 Big Eyes
4-13 He’s A Whore
4-14 You’re All Talk
4-15 Auf Wiedersehen
4-16 Encore Break
4-17 Goodnight