On April 8, 1978 Cheap Trick played London's Roundhouse. Here they are captured by Andre Csillag onstage. A shot of Tom Petersson, shown below, accompanied the NME's feature on the show.
The caption about Tom being a hippie is of course pretty loose. In those days, his shaking out of his hair was a common stage maneuver. The review was authored by Barry Miles, who wrote simply under the name "Miles." The NME issue also included an entire feature on the band, called "Tricky Ricky and the Denim Deliverers," by Max Bell. Bell was an early and influential supporter of the band across the pond. His article featured shots by Chalkie Davies. which were taken at the same time as Csillag's. Yeah, it took a lot of research to confirm this.
All the shots of the band are from outside the venue, I believe. You can see many of them on Shutterstock, including one of Rick with his Diane Keatonesque sunglasses that he wore in those days.
If not for the shot I chose, this might have been the one on the cover of my book. I wanted to use something from this exact date not only because they are fantastic photos of the band soaking in urban England (I don't think Rick and Tom had been there since their initial visit in 1968), but because this was the moment right before Japan.
The band loves to say they decided to drop "I Want You to Want Me" long before, which is patently untrue. Although I haven't heard a recording (I saw one on someone's list but they told me they no longer had), Cheap Trick played the song at this show. It's in the reviews. They also played it on The Old Grey Whistle Test, taped on March 28. The fact that they'd stick to their story is very on brand for them. Bun E. Carlos, featured in the photos in a kickass John Shaft leather trenchcoat, admits the story is made up. For the "Looking Back" featurette that accompanied the 30th anniversary DVD they allude to it. When Robin reunited with Brian Bebe in the Wisconsin Dells in 2014, he told it. There's nothing unusual about stagecraft and mythmaking in music. However, the idea that the song that broke the band being a last minute addition would be a great story if it was true.
Stuart Berman's review of the aforementioned 30th anniversary package talked about the amazing Cinderella story of Cheap Trick at Budokan. The comments in the "Looking Back" special feature, include mentions of this being an underdog story worthy of a Cameron Crowe film.
Crowe of course also has his own Cheap Trick connection, which I explore in the book. But my fascination with the London Roundhouse show and photoshoots is that this is the moment before it all changed.
So that's a little bit of background on how I ended up picking this shot. There were other great ones from noted photographers I could have gone with. But this was the one I wanted and it's also one I don't think gets enough exposure.
So there's that.
I hope people enjoy it and the book as a whole.