Tokyo Tapes includes songs from all Scorpions' albums released before 1978, which were recorded at
Nakano Sun Plaza (Tokyo's Nakano Ward, Japan) on 24 and 27 April, during the band's Japanese tour in 1978. These shows were guitarist
Uli Jon Roth's last performances with the band, who had announced his departure after the release in December 1977 of the studio album
Taken by Force. The live album was originally released on 15 August 1978 On the 2001
EMI re-mastered CD, "Polar Nights" was omitted so as to fit a single CD, although it was included on the re-mastered version of
Taken by Force. The earlier (1984) two-CD release, however, is the original album in its entirety. Roth commented about the recording of the album:
Tokyo Tapes was a peak time, we have played together for all these years and it all came together at that time. Particularly on the first show, which unfortunately wasn't recorded. There were three shows in Tokyo, the first one was by far the best, but the second one was good too. Those are the ones on the album, the second and the third that were used. The first one I thought was a lot better and I was disappointed that it wasn't recorded. In 2015, as part of Scorpions' 50th Anniversary,
Tokyo Tapes was remastered and re-released as a double-disc special edition, with all omitted songs ("Polar Nights" and the three excluded songs) restored and including alternate version of several songs originally found on the album. Due to time constraints on Disc 1, "Robot Man", the last track of the original release, was shifted to the beginning of Disc 2 which, otherwise, contains the bonus tracks. ==Track listing==