Cheep Trick Live At The Whisky 1977 (4-CD, Ltd.)

(Real Gone Music) 65 tracks, digisleeve, limited 45th Anniversary Edition of 2000 copies + Booklet in slipcover box

Want to hear a band on the verge of exploding? In June 1977, Cheap Trick was in Los Angeles to record their second album, "In Color." To get the band in shape for the album, they booked 5 gigs at Whisky a Go Go the weekend of June 3. The result: a series of fiery shows that can still be heard on the Sunset Strip today. KROQ DJ Rodney Bingenheimer introduced the band at the concerts and his memories are clear:

"The Whisky was packed at every show. A lot of girls came. It was like the 'new' Beatles had arrived." Indeed, along with The Doors in 1966, Led Zeppelin in 1969 and Van Halen in 1977, this concert is among the most infamous performances at the venerable venue.

Drummer Bun E. Carlos comments, "The Whisky shows show a hungry band. It was just before we went on tour with KISS and became much more famous than we were at that point. It was two nights of playing all our cool stuff from our first couple of records, and it's packed with goodies."

All of this would be mere legend, witnessed by only a few hundred Cheap Trick fans each night, were it not for the tapes recorded courtesy of Record Plant's Mobile Unit One at four of the five shows (and the fidelity and immediacy of those recordings are AMAZING). But when At Budokan was released 18 months later and made the band a superstar, the tapes were shelved.

Now, 45 years later, the whole world can discover what those lucky souls experienced on those nights at the Whiskey: that this quartet from Rockford, Illinois, was on its way to making rock history.

Our 4-CD set includes all four shows in their entirety (well over half of them unreleased), complete with guitarist Rick Nielsen's often hilarious onstage banter and notes from Ken Sharp that include quotes from Nielsen, Carlos and Robin Zander. The packaging is in the style of "Live at Leeds," and these shows rock just as hard as the legendary live performance.

Limited to 2000 copies.... if you're a Cheap Trick fan, speak now or forever hold your peace!