I Saw Todd Rundgren Last Night!!! - Recording Available!

Hi everyone,

I was at a concert of Todd Rundgren at the Paradiso in Amsterdam last night! :sunglasses:
He played with the Metropole Orchestra , a dutch orchestra consisting of a full big band, a 25 piece string section, a woodwind section and two percossionists.

It was a wonderful concert, Toddā€™s not only a phenomenal guitar player but also an incredible singer.
He has a great range for a 63 year old rocker and sings with lots of expression and emotion, and heā€™s also very funny! :slight_smile:

They played a selection of his hits, like ā€˜Hello Itā€™s Meā€™, ā€˜I Saw The Lightā€™ and ā€˜Can We Still Be Friendsā€™ and also some lesser known songs.
The arrangements were wonderful and made good use of the porential of the orchestra.
The highlight was a song with just strings and Toddā€™s vocal, goose bumps all over! :sunglasses:

The entire concert will be aired on Jan 1st 2012 on http://www.radio6.nl.

It was a night to remember! :sunglasses:

Cheers,
Wim

[Edit:] For those of you who are interested, Iā€™ve now got a recording of the show.
It was a high quality stream from the Radio 6 website that I recorded in 320 kbps mp3.

I will host it from my website for a short while. Send me a PM when interested and Iā€™ll send you the link. :sunglasses:

Great to know heā€™s still out there and still giving great performances. Glad you enjoyed the show, Wim :sunglasses:
Cheers
Phil

Hermit of Mink Hollow was my favorite record for a long time. Heā€™s one of my all time faves. Iā€™m really jealous (both for Amsterdam and Todd). I hope I can catch the radio show. Iā€™ve seen him solo and with Utopia a number of times. The shows were anywhere from embarrassingly bad, to mind blowing good. Sounds like this was on the really good side.

I saw him back in the 70ā€™s with Utopia. Fantastic concert! Great to hear that heā€™s still touring and folks still love his music.

Itā€™s great to know some old timers still have it, Wim

I ā€œdiscoveredā€ TR just a few years ago. Iā€™ve always sort of known that there is a person with that name but, you know, you canā€™t listen to EVERYTHING, can you? The I fell over an interview with this Todd and he seemed to be a reasonable person. A few years went by and YouTube popped up ans showed me some moving pictures and ā€¦ MUSIC! Great goggelimoggli! So maybe I should have a little collection of Todd Rundgren as well haha! :astonished: :laughing:

Good for you, the concert, Wim! :sunglasses:

The odd thing about TR is that he was/is always at the cutting edge of technology and distribution. Because of that a lot of the video and web stuff seems primitive. But, he was actually making music videos before well MTV was even a station. He made a interactive music sharing/publishing/fan interaction application for mac, PC and Amiga about the time MSN was in beta (early 90s?). Heā€™s also an accomplished producer as well, although almost without fail the bands that used him made their first polished album.

TR suggestions:
Hermit of Mink Hollow: amazing pop/rock/psychedelic/r&b and soul record.
A Wizard a True Star: Same as above, but a technological marvel for its time.
Todd: Weird songs that are very ā€œToddā€.
A capella: Listen and just be in awe for the amount of work and details went into it.

Utopia:
Utopia : one of the original psychedelic prog albums. Again, way ahead of its time.
Adventures in Utopia: Awesome pop rock, very unique even though it is pop rock
RA: Fun record, donā€™t take it too seriously ā€¦ the opening song is kick ass

Just a few personal faves there. Almost everything has something worthwhile in it, although I havenā€™t cared for things after Nearly Human, which is a great album also.

And donā€™t forget ā€˜Something/Anythingā€™, including the hits ā€˜Hello Itā€™s Meā€™ en ā€˜I Saw The Lightā€™!

BTW: Todd plays most of the instruments himselfā€¦ a wizard, a true star indeed! :sunglasses:

BTW2: He produced ā€˜Bat Out Of Hellā€™ by Meatloaf, and played guitar and sang backingvox on the album.

I listened to Todd constantly throughout the 80ā€™s and early 90ā€™s. Heā€™s been an influence on my music more than
any other artist I can thnk of.
Toddā€™s been touring a lot lately, and doing something very smart IMO. Since heā€™s got such a large back catalogue,
each tour he does is to support a particular album or two. This enables him to keep his fans coming back to see him again and again - because each time theyā€™ll be seeing him perform one of his old classic albums in itā€™s entirety. Just this past spring I saw him do the ā€˜Healing/Toddā€™ tour, and it was outstanding! Heā€™s 63, but he doesnā€™t look it. Heā€™s all over the stage, energetic and giving the crowd his all - and Iā€™ve never seen him in better voice, or better on guitar.
Recently his keyboard player from the first Utopia album, Moogy Klingman, was diagnosed with cancer, so they put that original lineup back together to do a benefit show in NY for Moogy. Apparently it went well, and theyā€™re now touring to support that album - plus some of his other tunes to round out the night. Iā€™m going to see that show on Nov 18th in Peekskill.

Did you not like ā€˜Second Windā€™, which came right after Nearly Human, and with the same band? That was a good one, but after that I, too, drifted away from Todd after he released a few disappointing experimental albums like No World Order, The Individualist, With A Twistā€¦but then he redeemed himself in 2004 with ā€˜Liarsā€™, which is an outstanding album where he got back to songcraft again. Iā€™d highly recommend Liars.

He also released his own tribute to the music of bluesman Robert Johnson and called it Todd Rundgrenā€™s Johnson - and also an EP of these songs, called (what else) Todd Rundgrenā€™s Short Johnson. :laughing:

Great records, and Iā€™d add that Oops Wrong Planet is IMO the strongest of the Utopia albums.

Hereā€™s an example:

:sunglasses:

Yeah, Pretending To Care is a beautiful song. Itā€™s from the A Capella
album and has no orchestra on that version. Todd does all that by
layering his voice with oohs and ahhhs.

Iā€™m migrating to the more ā€˜correctā€™ side of the brain and I have tons of work to do. Iā€™ll get ā€œHello, Itā€™s Meā€ done before the yearā€™s up. Hey Lenny, wassup! :laughing:

Saw him in the 70s with Utopia. I was (and still am) a total synth geek, so seeing him with Larry Fast was ā€¦ well ā€¦ Heavenā€¦
Then in 2001(?), I was hanging out at a little tiki lounge on the Esplanade at Burning Man and some guy is doing Bosa Nova verions of Rundgrenā€™s pop songs to an old Roland beatbox. I recognize the music and (while laughing my ass off at the irony of hearing TR at Burning Man) say out to my friend (a Grammy winning percussionist) ā€œhey, those are Todd Rundgren tunesā€¦ā€
To which he respondsā€¦
ā€œYup, thatā€™s Todd Rundgren playing them, weā€™re having dinner with his camp tonight.ā€
DOH!
Steak and Lobster dinner on the Playa that night with Todd and his whole camp. One of the nicest guys Iā€™ve ever met. Talk about heavenā€¦

Cool story! :sunglasses:

For those of you who are interested, Iā€™ve now got a recording of the show, Todd Rundgren & the Metropole Orchestra, Paradiso, Amsterdam, sep. 24th, 2011.
It was a high quality stream from the Radio 6 website that I recorded in 320 kbps mp3.

I will host it from my website for a short while. Send me a PM when interested and Iā€™ll send you the link. :sunglasses:

Cheers,
Wim

Got it, thanks a lot, great show. Listening to it now. Wondering if he did his own orchestrations; I think he knows how to do it. Utopia was my favorite one of hisā€¦

The orchestration was done by Tom Trapp, the band was conducted by Steve Sidwell.

Iā€™d love to hear it, Wim. Could you pm me the link?
Thanks, my friend. :slight_smile:

Lenny