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24 April 2012
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Classic & Current Contemporary Non-Schlock-Rock Metropolitan Music
Todd Rundgren, Joe Jackson, & ETHEL - 2005 (Pt. 3)
Todd Solo, Then Mix & Match
Todd Rundgren
The audience went wild when Todd strolled out on stage wearing a stylish brown suit with a green shirt. Damn he still looks great after all this time. He picked up a black acoustic guitar, greeted the audience, and opened with "Love of the Common Man" from Faithful. Next was one a quiet song from A Wizard/A True Star called "I Don't Want to Tie You Down." I started freaking out a little when I realized it has been 31 years since I bought that record, but I didn't feel nostalgic. It was just a nice rendition of a pretty song.
Even though I have not listened to Utopia's Swing to the Right in a couple of decades, I immediately recognized "Lysistrata," a song based on the Greek play by Aristophanes. I believe the premise of the play, set during the Peloponnesian War, was that women protested the war by snubbing their men (if you know what I mean), who got so frustrated they finally ended the war so they could have their chicks back. Not too long ago a group of women around the world read the play simultaneously to protest to the Iraq War. Just goes to show how far ahead of the times Todd was in 1982 when that album came out.
Todd stopped playing and began to chat with the audience, noting that Greensboro was his only stop between Florida and Pennsylvania and that he has spent more time in North Carolina so far during this tour than any other state.
You see, Todd's son Rex Rundgren plays for the Carolina Mudcats, the Florida Marlins' Double-A Minor League team based near Raleigh. Todd seemed quite the happy daddy when he talked about Rex and his baseball career during the show. The topic of baseball came up several times during the evening with Todd "tipping his hat" so to speak several times to the Greensboro Grasshoppers (a Marlins' Single-A team).
The Grasshoppers had played the Marlins in an exhibition game in Greensboro at the new downtown stadium on April 3rd. Two days before that game, I interviewed Todd by telephone for a preview of his show with Joe and ETHEL that I was writing for a local arts magazine, goTriad. While talking about North Carolina during that interview, Todd mentioned his son was a ballplayer for the Marlins' Double-A team, the Carolina Mudcats.
"The Marlins are playing here Sunday," I said.
"I know," said Todd. "And he'll be playing with them. He's drafted in the Marlins' organization and sometimes they let their minor league players, particularly in these exhibition games, play along with them. He called me yesterday and said he'll be playing [with the Marlins] in their final exhibition game before his season starts. He'll be playing either short-stop or second base, likely not for the whole game but for some part of the game."
This news was of particular interest to me because I was going to be covering the game for SportsTicker (ESPN's wire service) and would have an all-access pass. Being the compulsive person I am, I immediately thought it would be cool to do an interview with Rex for SportsTicker and I got all excited about this. It seemed like such a "lattice of coincidence."
After giving this more thought, however, I decided the timing wasn't right. I didn't want doing this piece for SportsTicker to be a distraction for any baseball players during Opening Week. I did speak to Rex briefly in the clubhouse and he scored a run during the game. Here is the box score.
Back to the show...
Todd played another tune from Faithful, "Black and White," still with that black acoustic guitar before setting it down and going to the piano. As he sat down he said, "You know I'm going to get obscure on your ass." I was glad to hear that.
The audience was quite rowdy, yelling out requests. Todd took it in good humor and joked back with the audience, then launched into "Song of the Viking" from Side 2 of Something/Anything followed by "Compassion" from his 1981 record Healing.
Todd was very talkative throughout the show, bantering back and forth with the audience, joking that "It's time to get over the past, but then again you can't let go" [blah blah blah - I can't remember this whole middle part but he finished up saying:] " of that one stupid song." And he played "Hello, It's Me." For a bunch of old folks, this was a pretty animated crowd...
Next Todd got his ukulele and did "Bang the 'Uke' All Day" from The Ever Popular Tortured Artist Effect. This is a great record and the one he was promoting the first time I saw him live. That was the Chapel Hill show on April 23, 1983, where U2 opened up for Todd. More on that show is on my U2 1983 War Tour at Chapel Hill, NC page.
OK, I'm almost finished here. Todd picked up his black guitar again and mentioned that he felt it was really time for this war in Iraq to end so we can bring our people back home before he started into "Beloved Infidel" off The Individualist. He finished that up that melancholy tune with a reprise of "Lysistrata." Good thing, too, or I might have started crying.
His last solo song was "The Wheel" that goes way back to 1975's Another Live and nakedly shows this dude's incredible vocal range. I would say this song was the closest of any he did that sounded like the record. But then again, that was a live recording!
The audience stood up clapping, whistling, screaming like crazy as Todd left the stage and the lights dimmed.
Joe Jackson and ETHEL
While the lights were out, the little mini-stage was moved back out to the right of the stage. About five minutes after the lights went down, they came back up.
This part of the show was rather amusing. Out walks Joe Jackson, who takes a seat at the piano as ETHEL went to the mini-stage. Well, three-quarters of ETHEL. Joe started intro-ing the next song, "Real Men" from Night and Day, with a little banter about how back in the early 80s this book had come out called "Real Men Don't Eat Quiche." All the while, there was this commotion about the missing violist. Should Joe start the song anyway? Play a different song? Well, he started jokingly repeating his little intro. Surely, ETHEL would be complete any second. But it seemed violist Ralph Farris had really gone missing. Again Joe started joking around by repeating his intro when finally Ralph bounded on the stage and took up his spot and the song began.
The strings added a rich sound to the song. I wish ETHEL and Joe would have played that whole Night and Day album!
Todd and ETHEL
Todd came out instrumentless except for ETHEL's accompaniment and I think he sang "Pretending to Care" from 1985's A Capella, one of his stranger records. I think all the "instrumentation" was done just using his voice (with the help of some electronics). I remember I used to play "Blue Orpheus" a lot on WKZL's New Generation Show. The "A Capella" tour was the second time I saw Todd, this time at Kidnappers in Charlotte. I went with my friend Warren Hudson from Warner Brothers. We talked to Todd in the hotel lobby. Of course, he didn't remember meeting me in 1983. Not that there is any reason he should have.
Ensemble - The Ethereal Six
At this point, a roadie handed Todd another guitar. Might have been an Ovation. One of those flat acoustic-looking things.
Todd looked back at "the group" and counted "1 - 2 - 3 - 4" and they started playing a cover of George Harrison's "While My Guitar Gently Weeps." Todd and Joe took turns swapping lead vocals. This was a very powerful mix of music. About this time all the pieces of the evening were coming together and I realized what an incredibly unique event I had experienced. There was nothing dated about it at all. This was not a night of so-called "greatest hits". It was a night of great songs. The old ones sounded just as fresh as the new ones. No oldies show here.
The ensemble left the stage and came back to do one more together, this time performing Todd's Something/Anything song "Black Maria." They captured the intensity of the original, with the strings taking over the parts where Todd dug into his guitar on the original version. (By now a least one of that little Ovation guitar's strings had popped and was flailing around.)
This ended up being the last song of the evening. I could have sat there all night and listened to them play. I still cannot get over what an original experience this evening was.
