Cheap Trick: Live At The Whiskey 1977 (2023)

I never buy CD’s anymore but when I saw this on Amazon a few months ago I had to get it! I was smart enough to preorder it as you can see by the sticker on the cover only 2,000 copies of this set were manufactured.

These live show’s were  recorded over two days (June 3rd and 4th 1977) at the Whiskey in Los Angeles which  as a listener you realize how great this band was at tearing up bar stages throughout the U.S at this point.

These four shows (two early performances and two late shows) sound awesome as the Trickster’s rip up that Roxy stage as at the time they were in L.A recording what would become their second release “In Color”.

With the four shows included here they mix up each set a little bit as tunes like “Auf Wiedersehen”,”High Roller” and “Southern Girls” which are played on these nights would not be heard until the “Heaven Tonight” release in 1978!

So cool that they were stage testing those three tracks as well. This kind of stuff is brilliant and over the course of these four shows no “I Want You To Want Me” or “Surrender” are played  which to be honest I’m totally ok with! Love em but have heard em way too much over the last 40 plus years.

Trick themselves pull out all the stops on this set as the band is killing it live and even at certain points you hear Robin Zanders voice get a little hoarse but thats to be expected as singing 60 songs over two nights is a mind blower! Ah, to be young again.

A pretty cool story to all of this is I had the privilege of having Cheap Trick historian Robert Dawson on and our half hour chat was all about this release. Robert knows his stuff and shared with me that  time he saw Cheap Trick about a month later in Winnipeg opening for KISS in the summer of ’77!

Give it a watch below and thanks for taking the time!

“Live At The Whiskey 1977” has Cheap Trick rocking over the course of three nights (two of which are recorded for our listening pleasure) and like many live albums from the 70s there is no way this one is fixed up. Also I have to add that as I told Robert that if your looking for Cheap Trick the band that plays “The Flame” you won’t find it here. You will find though the band that wrote “He’s A Whore” to kick you in the ass!

I have to add the packaging is awesome, excellent written liner notes in a booklet and each disc’s insert has each of the fella’s pics on them.

Bravo to Tom, Rick, Bun E and Robin!

deKe’s score of Tricks “Live At The Whiskey”….10/10