ceciliatan

Mirrored from the latest entry in Daron's Guitar Chronicles.

There were a lot of extra people around. Typical for a New York metro area show. The only thing that kept it down the day before was the stomach flu warnings, I guess.

That meant a lot of extra people distracting me before soundcheck, so that when soundcheck time came I was surprised by it. And a lot of extra people watching and listening to the soundcheck.

And the lounge act. “Who’s got our lounge act today?” I asked.

Mirrored from the latest entry in Daron's Guitar Chronicles.

The next night the stakes went up. It was the first of three nights in a row at Budokan.

You might as well have told me we were playing the White House, Buckingham Palace, and god’s own amphitheater all at once so far as the mythic-and-important factor went. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, you probably never heard the Cheap Trick album “Cheap Trick at Budokan,” which was one of the best selling albums of the 1970s, or any number of other major live shows that were recorded there. The phrase “live at Budokan” entered the rock and roll vocabulary in the seventies and never left. Even Bob Dylan did a “Live at Budokan” record.

No pressure.