Here comes yet another concert I attended over six months ago and finally posted about, Todd Rundgren. Even in a city with a somewhat exaggerated reputation for loving popular music, his name elicits either “who?” from most under 40 and “really?” from anyone that just knows his Seventies’ hits. I will go with one exception, XTC fans, the majority of which hate Todd despite his producing giving the British Post-Punk Trio one of their biggest hit albums in the US. Yes, they disagreed on putting “Dear God” on Skylarking yet even Mozart made mistakes; Todd said it didn’t fit with the overall essence, Andy had it added on later printings.
As for me, Todd is one of the few “Classic Rock” artists I liked during my formative years because he produced numerous albums I loved in high school and college. Besides Skylarking for XTC, he was behind the board here:
- Love Junk – Pursuit of Happiness
- Love Bomb – Tubes
- Forever Now – Psychedelic Furs
- Next Position Please – Cheap Trick
- Halfway Down the Sky – Splender
- The New America – Bad Religion
- Straight Up – Badfinger
I wasn’t too thrilled with him taking Ric Ocasek’s place when the Cars reunited briefly as the New Cars. Sure Elliott Easton and Greg Hawkes were present with Prairie Prince (Tubes) on the drums. It just isn’t the Cars unless Benjamin Orr (deceased) or Ric sing the lead vocals. I do have It’s Alive and compared to other bands who replaced their lead singer, I have heard much, much worse.
When I found out Todd Rundgren was playing the more intimate 3Ten venue in Austin, I had to go and I wasn’t disappointed. Although he only had Utopia’s bassist Kasim Sulton, I immediately recognized Greg Hawkes of the Cars playing keyboards! Anyone expecting to hear nothing but an evening of Rundgren’s “hits” which ended around “Bang on the Drum” in the narrow minds of the Midwest…they would be pissed. Two thirds of the set was comprised of covers he felt like doing, on the spur of the moment, after all, this tour was labelled “An Unpredictable Evening with Todd Rundgren.” What they played is listed via this link which isn’t completely accurate. For example, they closed with “Let’s Do This” from his latest record White Knight.
Greg Hawkes! Cars Keyboardist and a favorite of mine.
Obviously I did see Todd in the hopes he would do the hits I prefer, namely “Can We Still Be Friends?” A resounding yes here. No luck with “We Gotta Get You a Woman” but he did save “Hello It’s Me” for the encore; he wasn’t too enthused to perform it, yet sometimes you have to embrace your signature song. Take a lesson from Tom Jones, he said as long as his audiences continued to enjoy “What’s New Pussycat?,” he would share their joy.
Todd is returning to Austin this Summer. Would I go? Probably not, mainly over the venue, Emo’s. It’s a bad fit for him and his audience (mostly older people, plus one asshole I saw downloading the Ben Shapiro Show). I agree on 3Ten being too small but Emo’s is too big. There has to be somewhere in between. I’m grateful to have seen him in this smaller setting for he was the rare Boomer artist who embraced New Wave and tried new things (like being an Apple developer) instead of attacking change.
Todd mainly performs sitting down. Here he’s belting out Monty Python’s “The Meaning of Life”