Thunder Live

Thunder Live is a live album by Japanese jazz fusion band Casiopea, released on April 21, 1980 by Alfa Records. This album marked the first appearance of drummer Akira Jimbo, who replaced Takashi Sasaki that same year.^[1]

Thunder Live
Live album by Casiopea
Released	April 21, 1980
Recorded	February 8–9, 1980
Venue	ABC Hall, Tokyo
Genre	Jazz fusion
Length	41:56
Label	Alfa
Producer	Shunsuke Miyazumi Syoro Kawazoe Kunihiko Murai (exec.) Shinji Sawada (exec.)
Casiopea chronology
Super Flight (1979) Thunder Live (1980) Make Up City (1980)

Background and recording

This is their first live album, and it mainly includes songs from their past two albums, but "I'm Sorry" and "Have a Nice Dream" are included for the first time in this album.

In addition to the technical and detailed ensemble shown in their past two albums, their high performance in the live recordings, and the sophisticated drumming techniques of Akira Jimbo, have earned them even higher praise than ever. In particular, Harvey Mason heard this album during a listening project for a jazz magazine and was impressed, which led to him becoming involved in their subsequent activities, including participating in the production of their 1981 album Eyes of the Mind.

The live performance that included this album also included video, and at the time of its release it existed as a promotional video, but it was not commercially available for a long time. However, in 1992, "Have a Nice Dream" and "Black Joke" (different takes on different recording dates from the album) were included in the Casiopea live video collection Act One. In 1999, the DVD Casiopea Again included "Take Me", which was not included in the album, along with "Have a Nice Dream".

Packaging

There are two types of covers for this album. The jacket of the first edition, released in 1980, featured a caricature of the members in extreme colors, standing against a backdrop of crimson flames. This original jacket has received major criticism, even from Akira Jimbo's mother. However, from the re-press version, the cover was changed to a more subdued color scheme featuring an illustration of lightning falling on the sea surface.

Track listing

All tunes arranged by Issei Noro.

Side A

No.	Title	Music	Length
1.	"Space Road"	Issei Noro	6:38
2.	"Sailing Alone"	Tetsuo Sakurai	7:53
3.	"I'm Sorry"	Issei Noro	5:09
Total length:			19:40

Side B

No.	Title	Music	Length
1.	"Have a Nice Dream"	Issei Noro	6:30
2.	"Black Joke"	Issei Noro	9:07
3.	"Midnight Rendezvous"	Issei Noro	6:34
Total length:			22:11

Personnel

Band members

• Issei Noro - Electric guitar (Yamaha SG-2000)
• Minoru Mukaiya - Keyboards (Yamaha CP-80 and CS-40M, Fender Rhodes Piano, Korg 800DV and PS-3200, Roland VP-330 and ProMars)
• Tetsuo Sakurai - Bass (Fender Electric Bass, Yamaha BB-2000)
• Akira Jimbo - Drums (Yamaha YD-9000R)

Production

• Executive producers - Kunihiko Murai, Syoro Kawazoe
• Producers - Shunsuke Miyazumi, Shinji Sawada
• Recording andMixing engineer - Norio Yoshizawa, Yasuhiko Terada, Katsuhiko Sato
• Art Director - Yukimasa Okumura
• Design - Tomohiro Itami
• Illustrator - Makoto Saito
• Cover coordination - Toshinao Tsukui
• Remastering engineer - Kouji Suzuki (2016)

Release history

Region	Date	Label	Format	Catalog	Note
Japan	April 21, 1980	Alfa Records	30cmLP	ALR-6037	stereo
			Compact cassette	ALR-6037
	December 21, 1986		12cmCD	32XA-106
	March 21, 1992			ALCA-273
	June 29, 1994			ALCA-9003
	July 23, 1998			ALCA-9198
	December 19, 2001	Village Records	remastered 12cmCD	VRCL-2203	DSD, LP paper jacket
	January 17, 2002			VRCL-2223	DSD
	May 27, 2009	Sony Music Direct		MHCL-20005	DSD, Blu-spec CD, LP paper jacket
	February 3, 2016		Music download	1076212864	iTunes Store[2]
				4582290413969	mora AAC-LC 320 kbps[3]
				A1003862385	Recochoku AAC 128/320 kbps[4]
				B01B5AR7PY	Amazon.com[5]
				Bngtow64ze5jvnlo3uzaasrgnii	Google Play Music[6]
	July 27, 2016			4582290418681	mora DSD 2.8 MHz/1bit[7]
				smj4582290418681	e-onkyo DSD 2.8 MHz/1bit[8]
				11183	HD-music DSD 2.8 MHz/1bit[9]
				4582290418674	mora FLAC 96.0 kHz/24bit[10]
				A1003862385	Recochoku FLAC 96 kHz 24bit[11]
				smj4582290418674	e-onkyo FLAC 96 kHz 24bit[12]
				11172	HD-music FLAC 96 kHz/24bit[13]
	November 10, 2016			2l1oVe4qT0xMwR32lSN8BI	Spotify[14]

Full Live

Aside from Casiopea Perfect Live II, all Casiopea lives officially released are cut.

Some songs are missing from the official release, some are not in the right order and some are shorter.

No.	Title	Music	from album	Length
1.	"Space Road"	Issei Noro	Casiopea
2.	"Time Limit"	Issei Noro	Casiopea
3.	"Sailing Alone"	Tetsuo Sakurai	Super Flight
4.	"I'm Sorry"	Issei Noro
5.	"Have a Nice Dream"	Issei Noro
6.	"Take Me"	Issei Noro	Super Flight
7.	"Magic Ray"	Issei Noro	Super Flight
8.	"I Love New York"	Issei Noro	Super Flight
9.	"Tears of The Star"	Issei Noro	Casiopea
10.	"Life Game"	Issei Noro	Make Up City
11.	"Black Joke"	Issei Noro	Casiopea
12.	"Midnight Rendezvous"	Issei Noro	Casiopea
13.	"Mighty Mouse"	Issei Noro	Super Flight
14.	"Asayake"	Issei Noro	Super Flight