Tonight I went to the Wiltern Theater again to see Todd Rundgren. If you remember, I was just there with Grimsley last Saturday to see Robin Trower. This time I went by myself. The traffic was typical for a Friday night, heavy but not at a standstill thank goodness. I was able to park for free on a nearby side street, which was also nice because parking in a lot down there varies from 10 to 20 bucks. I was inside the theater and in my seat by 7:45. Fifteen minutes later the concert began.
Todd Rundgren has recently become one of a handful of artists whom I have seen in concert over a forty year period or longer. Rick Wakeman holds the record at 44 years (first show 1974, most recent 2018) and there are others, like Sparks, Black Sabbath & Alice Cooper. Next time Van Halen plays, they will join the club. As for Todd, I first saw him with Utopia at the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium in April 1977 on the "Ra" tour, so tonight makes 42 years from first show to most recent. Judging from tonight's performance, Todd might make it to the fifty year mark, only eight years away.
What can I say except that the guy is incredible? He obviously takes good care of himself just to have the energy to tour at 71, and to play, on this tour, a two hour and twenty minute show where he is singing full throttle most of the time. Todd has been naming his tours lately, this one is called "The Individualist", after his most recent album and autobiography that came our last December. I wasn't even gonna go to this show because at first, I'd read that it was gonna be a "book & music" tour where Todd would stop to take questions from the audience. I pictured him sitting onstage on a stool, perhaps with a piano and acoustic guitar nearby. I thought he was gonna spend some of the time talking about his book and his life in a discussion with the audience, and some of the time playing acoustic versions of his songs. I had already seen him three times since 2016, always with a full band, so I figured I didn't need to see a book publicity tour, and up until a week ago I didn't have a ticket and wasn't planning to go. But then two things happened. The first was that I checked Youtube, on spur of the moment curiosity, just to see if anyone had posted footage from the current tour. Yes they had, and I saw right away that it was a real concert with a full band, not a "sit down" lecture tour, as had been publicized. Whoever wrote that original promo should be fired, because that was exactly what was indicated, a solo Todd show where he would be talking about his book. That's why I wasn't planning to go.
Boy am I glad I Youtubed......and boy am I glad I also checked setlist.com. When I looked at setlists from this tour, they featured 27 songs! Holy smokes, that's Paul McCartney territory.
The second thing that happened, almost by coincidence or more likely serendipity, was that Live Nation was having one of their annual Concert Week promotions, where all tickets to certain concerts were only 20 bucks, with no added fees. The Todd concert was almost sold out, except for a few of these twenty dollar tix. Great googly moogly folks, I scored one. (Can you even believe the luck?....)
So all of a sudden, I was gonna go to the Todd Rundgren show, where just a day earlier, I wasn't.
And it was pure magic, the longest show I've ever seen him play. The first set lasted 80 minutes and consisted of an early greatest hits retrospective, but since Todd only had a few hit singles, what I mean is that everything he played was a fan favorite. He opened with "I Think You Know" from the "Todd" album, which just happens to be the first Todd song I ever heard. I bought that album at College Records in early 1974 and the first song on the album is that one. It has a spacey hook and swirling synthesizer noises over a pop/soul melody. I became a Todd fan for life after that one initial song.
The rest of first set featured all the hits from "Something/Anything", several from "Mink Hollow" and just a ton of stuff, at least fifteen songs and maybe more. Go to setlist.com, as I did, to see for yourself. He even did "An Elpee's Worth Of Tunes" from "Todd", which would seem not reproduceable in concert, but his crack band pulled it off. The band consisted of longtime Todd sideman Jesse Gress on second guitar, Utopia member and all around MVP Kasim Sulton on bass and impeccable backup vocals, Greg Hawkes from The Cars on keys, human metronome Prairie Prince on drums and Bobby Strickland on saxophones and woodwinds. The first set all by itself would've been a full concert for most bands.
I am gonna have to finish this review tomorrow night, just because it is late and I was too effusive and not as concise as I would have liked to have been. Please forgive me as I am a full-time caregiver and I am already stretched to the limit with my daily schedule. I do love to write, however, be it movie reviews or about concerts or just my ordinary thoughts. My problem is that I need time, to edit, to finish my thoughts, etc. And I don't have as much time as I used to, so sometimes or even often a blog may seem incomplete or not well executed. In any case, I will try to finish my Todd review tomorrow night. In the meantime, here is a blog I wrote last night but didn't have time to review or edit. The same deal is therefore in order - if it sounds like gibberish, sorry about that. :)
(from May 9, 2019) Grimsley came over tonight, which means I don't have a movie to review, which means I have to think up something to talk about. Let's see if I can do it. I am working on two books at the moment. One is "King's X : The Oral History" by Greg Prato. Notwithstanding my fanboy status, I think it is one of the best rock biographies I've ever read. It covers the group's entire history going back to the early 1980s when they were a covers band called The Edge. In 1983 they changed their name to Sneak Preview and played power pop for a few years in Springfield, Missouri, where they were based at the time. You can see a video for the song "Linda" by Sneak Preview on Youtube, and even in that early incarnation their talent is obvious, even though the song sounds nothing like what King's X would become. But it's got a great hook, and Doug was a star even then, and "Linda" could've been a hit in it's own right.
As the contributors to the book testify, King's X should've been huge. They've had every ingredient for massive success : incredible songwriting on par with the greatest bands of all time, top level musicianship played from the heart and not just with technique, though they have that in spades. And singing. This is what makes them unique. All three guys sing, Doug is one of the greatest lead vocalists in the history of rock, and I say that not only as a fanboy but as a Rock 'N Roll Expert since the age of four. But Ty and Jerry also sing, and as a band they use three part harmonies to the greatest effect since The Beatles.
As I've been reading the book, I've been going back and listening to songs from each album, as they are reviewed chapter by chapter. Doug, Ty and Jerry comment on the songs, as do musician fans of the band. Even though I've listened to KX a million times over the years, because of the book and it's description of the writing and recording process of each album, I am revisiting the songs anew with all of that information in mind. And I am feeling so much power from every song that it's like hearing each one for the first time, and I have to ask myself if these guys aren't The Greatest Band of All Time.
In the 90's I considered them so. Their fifth album "Dogman" came out the day before our earthquake. It had a sound to match the seismic waves and to this day it is one of my Top Five albums of all time.
King's X are not just one of my very favorite bands (maybe even my most favorite), but they also feel like family to me, as all of my closest favorites do, from Van Halen to Sparks.
I first heard King's X when Pat brought over the album "Gretchen Goes To Nebraska" in June 1989. Many fans consider that album to be the band's masterpiece. I was blown away from the first listen.
Little did I know my life was about to change two months later. I actually did not know it had changed until October 1993, but it had, and King's X was with me during all that time of amnesia in the early 1990s. By January 1994, my memory was just beginning to come back, so when "Dogman" came out, the steamrolling sound of the music mirrored the way I felt. I thought I was gonna conquer the world with what I was remembering. King's X was my soundtrack of The Truth.
So the band has been with me for 30 years and so has The Other Thing, meaning 1989.
Both of us should've been huge - KX for their music; me for my story. Great music lasts forever, and a story can be timeless if it supplies a sense of mystery that can't quite be answered. If it casts a spell and is larger than life.
At the time, when I was writing my story in 2006, I wanted it to be huge. I wanted everyone in the world to know what happened to me, and I still do.
I was kidnapped by my next door neighbor and The President of The United States came to get me out, though he wouldn't become the President for another three years.
It's a true story (with a lot more to the context), and like the music of King's X, I've been living with it for thirty years. They have provided the soundtrack to my life for all this time, and it has meant so much to me that I haven't the words to describe, except to say that they are family.
Now, they haven't recorded a new album since 2008.
But wait! As of two weeks ago, they have been ensconced at Blacksound Studios in Pasadena, where they are indeed recording their first new album in 11 years. Doug will be 70 in September, the same month that will mark the 30th anniversary of What Happened In Northridge.
King's X may never become huge in their lifetimes, but they are already legendary, and the respect and appreciation for their music will continue to grow over the years and decades, simply because it is so magnificent. In the long run, people will continue to discover them because, like The Beatles, they have written so many songs that will become part of our musical dna.
One day the truth will be told, one day King's X will be huge.
See you in the morning with love sent all night long. xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
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