What started as a judo complex built for the 1964 Olympics in Tokyo, the Nipon Budokan naturally turned into one of the most popular music venues in all of Japan, and a favorite for artists to record concerts.

Thanks to its beautiful acoustics and the fact that Japanese concert attendees are well-behaved and often quite quiet, live recordings from the 14,000 seat octagon are some of the finest to this day.

And like many things in modern music, it started with The Beatles.

In 1966, just a few years removed from the Summer Games, the Mop Tops were the first rockers to hold a concert at Budokan when they played five sold out gigs there.

But it didn't come without controversy. Some Japanese believed the arena was a tribute to the war dead, thus non-serious events like a Beatles concert were inappropriate for the venue that still hosted martial arts events like sumo. There were protests, death threats, and thousands of police protected the Fab Four from angry locals.

"Everywhere we were going, there was a demonstration about one thing or another," George Harrison remembered in The Beatles Anthology.

"In America the race riots were going on when Beatlemania had come to town. In Japan there were student riots, plus people were demonstrating because the Budokan, where we were playing, was supposed to be a special spiritual hall reserved for martial arts. So in the Budokan only violence and spirituality were approved of, not pop music."

Ringo also noticed how different the Japanese reacted to live rock music.

"The audience was very subdued," he noted. "If you look at the footage from the shows you’ll see a cop on every row. They’d all get excited in their seats as we were playing, but they couldn’t express it."

And that is exactly why so many live records came out of the Budokan. Perhaps none as iconic as Cheap Trick's 1977 classic.

Before they broke in the US, Cheap Trick had become darlings in Japan - some even calling them America's Beatles.

By the time they recorded At Budokan, the Chicago quartet had released three albums which were not well received in the States, but the Japanese ate it up.

In a recent interview with Dan Rather, singer Robin Zander said when they opened for Queen for two shows in Wisconsin in 1977 some members of the Japanese press were there and wrote about Cheap Trick, a rarity for opening bands.

Soon they'd see themselves in Japanese comic books which usually featured KISS or Queen. Guitarist Rick Neilson said they seemed cartoonish to the Asian audiences - which was a good thing because they loved that outrageous image.

When At Budokan was recorded on April 28 & 30, 1978, Cheap Trick were already beloved in Japan and that feeling bled through in the record. So when Zander told the crowd, "I want you, to want me," the screams from the girls were sincere and American fans felt like they needed to catch up to the frenzy.

Thanks to that hit and "Surrender," stars were born. The album rocketed to #4 on the US charts and eventually went triple platinum.

Earlier that year Bob Dylan had also recorded a pair of shows at Budokan which he released a few months before Cheap Trick. The response for his At Budokan was vastly different.

Rolling Stone gave it just one star and others called it his worst album ever.

At issue were the wildly creative re-arrangements of his hits and the addition of flutes, violins and background singers.

Steven Hyden, critiquing the expanded re-release which he called "the zaniest live album by Bob Dylan (or anyone)," wrote in Uproxx:

"It is the opposite of straightforward. It is crooked and backward. For At Budokan, Dylan employed an expansive 11-piece band staffed with, among other musicians, three backup singers, an extremely audible percussionist, an ex-King Crimson drummer, Eddie Money’s keyboardist, a blonde guitarist who performed in the Broadway production of Hair, and (most notoriously) a horn player doing double duty on saxophone and flute."

A year before Dylan and Cheap Trick, it was KISS who would record a show at Budokan that would make it to a hit album.

Even though Alive II was mostly recorded at the Forum in Los Angeles, two tracks, "I Want You" and "Beth" came from their show in April at the sacred martial arts site.

At the end of "Beth" you can hear Peter Criss say, "thank you, Tokyo." It's a phrase we should all be saying because the roll call of artists who have recorded live albums at Budokan is a who's who of your favorite acts.

Here are just a few:

Deep Purple Made in Japan, The Carpenters Live in Japan, Neil Young Odeon Budokan, Rainbow On Stage, Eric Clapton Just One Night, Diana Ross An Evening with Diana Ross, Julie Andrews An Evening with Julie Andrews, The Police Radio On, Toto Live at Budokan, Asia Live at Budokan, Willie Nelson Live At Budokan, Frank Sinatra Live at the Budokan Hall, Cyndi Lauper Live in Tokyo, Ozzy Osbourne Live at Budokan, Judas Priest Rising in the East, and Blackpink.

Journey, who is on tour right now with Cheap Trick, will be performing at Budokan next month for two shows. Grab your tickets on their website while you can.