BLUE ÖYSTER CULT.

Description

May 1979 Japanese concert tour program 

Large original concert program produced for American rock group Blue Öyster Cult’s May 1979 Japanese tour, presented by UDO Artists, Inc. The brief 5-date tour commenced at the Nakano Sun Plaza Hall in Tokyo on 6th May and ended at the very same venue on 10th May, 1979. The tour was a historic milestone for the band, marking their very first time performing in Japan. It took place as part of the broader promotional cycle surrounding their upcoming sixth studio album, Mirrors. Aside from playing to an enthusiastic new audience, this tour is legendary among rock historians for the death of BÖC’s pioneering laser show. Throughout the mid-to-late 1970s, Blue Öyster Cult was famous for its massive, state-of-the-art laser light production – a setup so complex it required a dedicated team of road engineers to manage. However, the shipping, logistics, and technical hurdles of hauling the delicate setup across the Pacific proved disastrous. The lasers became entirely unreliable under local conditions. Frustrated with the mounting costs and technical headaches, the band decided to completely drop the lasers upon returning to the United States. Because the bands iconic 1977 track “Godzilla” was a massive tribute to Japan’s most famous pop-culture monster, the Japanese tour merchandise, flyers, and programs heavily featured official artwork of the legendary kaiju. To introduce the heavy monster track properly on stage, frontman Eric Bloom reportedly took a 60-hour college crash course in Japanese prior to the tour just to correctly pronounce the spoken-word warning intro to “Godzilla” in the local tongue.

In original illustrated coated wrappers, staple bound, 25.8 x 36.5 cm, 32 pp. All text in Japanese. In excellent complete condition, tightly bound and clean.