Cheap Trick's lead guitarist and eternal goofball Rick Nielsen declares on the band's new concert DVD From Tokyo To You: "I've had three wishes in my life: One, I didn't want to be the richest guy in the world. Two, I didn't want to be the best-looking guy in the world. ... I've accomplished those two. I'm still working on the third. Why not stay with Cheap Trick?"

Why not, indeed? No '70s arena-rock group has benefited more from its mediocrity than this outfit. Not flamboyant (like KISS or Queen), not pretentious and precious (like Rush or Styx), and never raging metallica (like AC/DC or Judas Priest), Cheap Trick was an Illinois bar band that stumbled into classic-rock mythology. The group was always a little more inspired and intense onstage than recordings suggested. They fell into a Japanese fad for American rock anthems quite unexpectedly, and the move threw their humble but hardworking career into full-throttle platinum sales status. Their 1979 Live At Budokan album was the fluke that transformed them into FM radio gods, retroactively. (They'd released three studio albums in the U.S. prior to that.)

From Tokyo To You, shot on digital video as a silver anniversary celebration of the Budokan breakthrough, lets all the seams show. Footage from a 2003 concert at a a club in Sendaei, Japan -- showing many, many thousands fewer fans than in '79 -- alternates with interviews that allow this venerable quartet to be Spinal Tap-silly and honestly weary about the constant travel schedule. That sked is clearly a grind for men in their fifties, though apparently none of the bandmembers have decimated themselves with drugs and alcohol. Had Kurt Cobain (a professed CT fan) survived 25 years to film a Cialis commercial, he might resemble the blond-tressed vocalist Robin Zander, a frontman's frontman who still knows how to screech, carry a tune, and look pinup-handsome all at once. Drummer Bun E. Carlos looks even more like an apartment-complex supervisor, and he pounds out "Big Eyes" and "Dream Police" with that kind of home-visit confidence. From Tokyo To You has already upset some online fans because none of the live songs are included in their full-length versions -- talking-heads and video graphics crop off a good third of each tune. That's a shame, because the Tokyo DVD suggests that Cheap Trick, however tired of the long and winding road, invests current performances with a garage-band zeal that could compete with those salad days of yore.