At Budokan

Cheap Trick at Budokan was first released in Japan on 8 October 1978 and in the United States in February 1979 through Epic. The idea came from Japanese record executives. Carlos recalled that CBS/Sony, splitting into two companies, decided to record every visiting Epic or Columbia band, and that Bob Dylan and Cheap Trick were the first albums in the series. The shows were on 28 and 30 April 1978 before 12,000 fans. Cheap Trick are credited as producers, with Tomoo Suzuki as recording engineer, Jay Messina as mixing engineer and Jack Douglas supervising the mix.

The official credit is the Nippon Budokan, but Douglas told the Magnificent Others with Billy Corgan podcast that the Budokan tapes sounded terrible, with the microphones pointed the wrong way and no bass drum, and that the album is from Osaka. For the 30th anniversary reissue Nielsen asked him for a 5.1 mix of the film, and he and Messina used close-ups from Budokan and wide shots from Osaka. The album carried two songs not yet released in studio form, Lookout and Need Your Love, and five from In Color: Hello There, Come On, Come On, Big Eyes, I Want You to Want Me and Clock Strikes Ten. Surrender was the only Heaven Tonight song. Ain't That a Shame is a cover of Fats Domino.

Nielsen said the Japanese press liked the band after he wrote an article about touring with Queen, and that every show on the tour was sold out. In the United States the album peaked at number four, finished 1979 at number 13 on Billboard's year-end chart, and was certified triple platinum in 1986. Sounds called them possibly the best hard rock band in the USA. Pitchfork's Stuart Berman wrote that bands from the Foo Fighters to the Raconteurs trace a line back to it. Later came Budokan II (1994), At Budokan: The Complete Concert (1998), and the four-disc Budokan! (2008), which added a DVD of the 28 April concert.