A Wizard, A True Star

Fabmary and I attended Todd Rundgren's recent live performance at Hammersmith Apollo of his 1973 album A Wizard, A True Star. Absolutely fantastic!

Todd was his own support act playing heavied-up versions of Robert Johnson's songs with a line-up of two guitars, bass and drums subtly entitled 'Todd Rundgren's Johnson'. Straight up blues-rock which took a lot of the audience by surprise, but it was great to hear lots of Todd guitar even if they did sound a bit under-rehearsed. There was an over-long interval before the main event started but it was worth the wait. Todd had ten or twelve costume changes through the show, some of which were hilarious e.g. a fat suit for 'Onionhead' and his feathered outfit for 'Zen Archer', a couple of spandex leotards also featured along with an orange suit. Not forgetting the gold lame, and the astronaut suit for 'International Feel'.

Todd's band (guitar, bass, drums, two keyboards, sax/flute) were excellent and really sounded as if they were enjoying it; Todd's vocals were stupendous especially on the soul medley (I'm So Proud etc.) and the crowd went bonkers for the last half hour or so after 'Cool Jerk'. Todd had re-ordered some of the songs to give him time to change frocks in between songs. He did a lot of running about as well, considering he must be over sixty years old by now, and blasted out some flash solos on his psychedelic Gibson SG. Great!
For a full review and slideshow of Todd's performance of AWATS at the Orpheum Theatre, Los Angeles click here.