Philzone.org - Philzone Phansite Community Discussion Board: Setlists and Reviews: Non GD Related Reviews: Archive: Todd Rundgren - Great American Music Hall

I am a LONG time Todd fan and I try to see him every time he plays, EXCEPT when he's doing a solo thing (I was extremely dissapointed with him at Bimbo's a couple of years ago) and the way this show had been advertised lead me to think it was a solo type deal, so I had written it off and had forgotten it was even happening.

But last night I was flipping through a local newspaper and saw an add for the Todd show in Santa Cruz that showed he was playing with a band, and WHAT a band - Prairie Prince on drums, Kazim Sulton on bass and a guitar player - so I called the GAMH to find out if the SF show had already happened, and the lady said the show is TONIGHT and it's not sold-out, so in the car & up the Penninsula I went, and got there just as the opening band left the stage; PERFECT timing.

I LOVED Utiopia in the late 70's and saw three shows in two years that blew my mind, but in all the years since then the various projects Todd has involved himself in have never IMO come close to what he did with the various combinations of Utopia, so I wasn't expecting too much, even with Kaz (Utopia's bass player) and Prairie.

Well, my expectations were BLOWN away last night! This was straight guitar driven rock 'n roll, with Todd playing guitar on EVERY song. The band was tight, the music rocked and it was easily the best Todd show I've seen in almost 20 years!

The music was VERY Utopian in style, even without a keyboard player. The group was TIGHT and their style was raw, reminiscent of the Oops, Wrong Planet or Sun Ra era, and with Kaz and Prairie they still had the complex undertones and great harmonies that made Utopia such a great band.

They only played one old song all night, Black Maria (which ROCKED) and that was really in keeping with the style of the songs they played; blazing & hard rocking.

I only recognized a couple of songs overall, and because I'm an old fan I kept hoping they'd break out some of the MANY great tunes in Todds bag, but they didn't play one dud all night, and I'm very hard to please when older rockers play only newer songs, since they rarely are close to as good as the gems. But every song they did was well written and WELL played; no sap and no filler, just the MEAT!

It was great to hear Kazim really jamming on the bass, he is truly a brilliant bass player, and Prairie is as good as it gets as a rock drummer. The guy who was playing guitar with Todd was fine as well, and a good lead-in on solos for Todd, who has such a classic, unique guitar sound and can really RIP a solo, which he did on every song. So often these days Todd doesn't even touch a guitar all night, so seeing and hearing him plugged in on EVERY song was really fun.

As I said, Todds guitar playing was great all night and surprisingly his voice was great as well, considering he was playing all rockers.

IMO Todd Rundgren is one of the most underrated singers from the rock era; he can use his voice in so many ways and on a good night could be like Jerry on guitar; UNREAL!

In the end I walked out of the glorious Great American Music Hall with the rest of the almost capacity crowd sweaty and totally satisfied. It was great to see an old hero playing in his best style with a great band and sounding in such good form.

>>I LOVED Utiopia and his solo stuff
Todd is God !!!
Kasim is a great singer and seen Todd many time.
The solo shit was bad so I quit seeing him.

on the road to utiopia

http://www.tr-i.com/flash.html

I saw Todd & Utopia at the Greek Theater back in '80(?) and was blown away. I haven't kept up with his career much in the past 25+ years. Nice to hear he's back to playing with a band. I've always considered him one of rock's true greats.

>>>I saw Todd & Utopia at the Greek Theater back in '80<<<

Yeah, that was the third of the three amazing shows that made me a fan for life. That group at that time really had no limitations.

That night was also the first (but NOT the last) time I was "electric" at the Greek!

Ah, the memories.

utopia
great band

todd came out with vince/kimock about 10 yrs ago at fillmore

City in my head.

Thanks, The Cars thing scared the shit out of me. Glad to see he finally realized his material leaves The Cars at the starting line. His past tours have been weak, if only I could pick the songs instead of Todd. Utopia never disappointed me the numeroius times I seen them.

Nice review!

Good to see that TR is back to form with this new group.

>>todd came out with vince/kimock about 10 yrs ago at fillmore

I was at that show and it was great in every way. There's a nice SBD of that on the LMA.

remember the drum set utopia's drummer used from the early 80's?...drum set on a motorcycle frame...very cool...saw them 2-3 times at the stanley theater in pittsburgh

I saw The New Cars three weeks ago at a state fair. I convinced a few friends to go since Todd was in the band. We all took it for what it was (2/5 of the original Cars + Prairie Prince and Rungren). And while not mind-blowing, it was pretty fun. they did five of Rungren's tunes.
And the admission was free.

They are blasting the radio with commercials for Todd's show here. The commercials play all of his hits. I would be pissed off if he didn't play any of them at the show. False Advertising!

>>todd came out with vince/kimock about 10 yrs ago at fillmore

I was at that show and it was great in every way. There's a nice SBD of that on the LMA.


bingo, me too, where do I find the SBd dave ?

>>>False advertising<<<

Isn't that redundant?

Still, it's a good show with top level players. If it's not too expensive it's good R & R.

>>bingo, me too, where do I find the SBd dave ?


http://www.archive.org/details/mmf1996-07-06.sbd.s hnf

The one time I saw Todd Rundgren -- at the Boulder Theater in November 2003 -- he was woefully underrehearsed and butchered almost every song. The best song of the night was "Bang On The Drum All Day", which he played ukelele. In addition, his demeanor was thoroughly smart-assed, as he thought it was cool he was making all these errors. It was all attitude, little substance, and poor musicianship.

After hitting a painful piano clam in "Hello It's Me" at the beginning of the encore, I left. To be frank, next to Phil w/Ryan at the Denver FillMart, easily among the worst shows I've seen as a resident of Colorado.

Thus, I'm glad to read the concert review here, because having a full band is the only way I would consider seeing Mr. Rundgren again.

Speaking of the great Todd/Utopia show at the Greek Theater, I remember a pretty tasty opening set from Ronnie Montrose's Gamma.

Ah, yes. GREAT SHOW! But that one was 9/28/79 (I've still got the ticket stub).

That was my first show ever at the Greek and the first time I saw Utopia/Todd. They came back around in May of '80 and played San Jose & the Greek again. All three shows were GREAT...... and that was the last great Utopia tour.

They hung around for an album or two after that and toured once more (I saw them at the Kabuki in '83 or so and it was not good) but they were really done after the '79 - '80 tour.

Roger Powell, who played keys in Utopia, lives and plays around the San Gregorio area near LaHonda, CA. I wonder if he sat in with Todd at the Santa Cruz show?

Last time I saw Todd it was at the Palace of Fine Arts just after the earthquake. He had Vince Welnick in the band. Todd had produced Remote Control for The Tubes. It was just an OK show. I think he was recording it. I do remember that he did way too much talking.

I would have been pissed if I went to the GAMH to see Todd and he didn't play any of his classics.

Props to Todd, saw him in Woodstock, NY in the summer of 1986. Gold! Thanks for the reviews.

Todd's oneo fo those incredibly talented artists you can never write off. Apparently, his last album Liars is considered one of his best. It was released in 2005 or 2006 I believe.

Mr Haynes...how about a cover of The Last Ride

>>>In addition, his demeanor was thoroughly smart-assed, as he thought it was cool he was making all these errors. It was all attitude, little substance, and poor musicianship.

You talking about Todd, or RA (sorry, couldn't help myself!)?

OK, probably has some substance (well, actually lots of substances...)

was the other guitar player Jesse Gress?