Hello it’s me (virtually): Todd Rundgren bringing an unusual tour to Kansas City fans
Todd Rundgren has long been known as an innovator within the music world.
Savvy in technology, he designed the first-ever graphics tablet for Apple in 1979, staged the first live interactive television concert in 1978 and the first live national cablecast of a rock concert in 1982. He also offered the first commercial music downloads in 1992, the first online direct artist subscription service, “PatroNet,” in 1998, and the first full-length concert shot with multiple virtual reality 360º cameras in 2016.
His latest venture is into a different kind of livestreaming event — a virtual tour in which he and his band will play shows “in” 25 cities — by tailoring each performance for a specific city.
Rundgren is actually not the first act to roll out a virtual tour. Jim Brickman did a virtual holiday tour in December and another for Valentine’s Day, and Steve Wynn (of the Dream Syndicate) is currently doing a similar outing. But those tours weren’t as long or the shows weren’t as elaborate as what Rundgren is doing. That makes Rundgren’s “Clearly Human” virtual tour a step into the unknown, and Rundgren, during a recent video conference interview, admitted his venture has significant risks.
“In the traditional touring environment, you have local promoters who guarantee the events,” he said. “They send you like half of the guarantee to ensure that you’ll show up, and this becomes your financing to develop your show. And you kind of know how many tickets you’ve sold well before the gigs.
“For these online things, ticket sales start out really slow because people know it’s not actually a physical seat they’re fighting for,” Rundgren said. “I was talking to Joe Bonamassa, who did a big event. It wasn’t a tour. It was just a singular online event. He said it wasn’t until 72 hours before the event that the ticket sales started to actually happen. So we’re in that kind of situation right now. By the time the first show starts, I’ll probably be in for about a million dollars, all my own resources, because I’ve got no promoters. I’m the promoter of the shows. And it’s scary, it’s pretty scary. We don’t know exactly what kind of response we’re going to get.”
Rundgren will have a good sense of how his “tour” is faring by the time the March 3 date designated for Kansas City arrives. But he did his part to make his livestreamed shows bona fide events. For one thing, he’s assembled a 10-piece band that includes horns and backup singers — a much larger unit than he could usually afford to take out on an actual tour.
He’s also making a tangible effort to make it feel like he’s actually playing in each city on the tour route, even though every show will actually emanate from the same venue in Chicago. Rundgren is using specifically tailored video to highlight landmarks and other signature places and things for each city, and the menu for the band and crew will feature food associated specifically with the city in which Rundgren and his band are “playing” that evening.
The set list for the current virtual tour is different than Rundgren would bring out on a normal tour. The show will focus on material from his 1989 album, “Nearly Human,” while leaving room for songs from across his solo career, which stretches back to 1970, when after a short stint in the group the Nazz, he released his solo debut album, “Runt.”
He quickly cemented his status as one of rock’s most talented songwriters with the 1972 album “Something/Anything,” followed a year later by “A Wizard, a True Star.” During the early 1970s, he also formed his long-running band, Utopia, and between his solo and Utopia albums, he went on to pursue a diverse, innovative and occasionally experimental musical path that has seen him touch upon most every type of pop music, as well as progressive rock, electronic music and more. Along the way, he’s notched several hit singles, including “Hello, It’s Me,” “Can We Still Be Friends?” and “Bang on the Drum All Day,” and also developed a prolific and successful career producing albums for other artists.
“Nearly Human” stands as one of Rundgren’s most notable — and innovative — solo efforts. It was recorded in an era when digital technology was new and popular, and albums were commonly recorded an instrument at a time. Rundgren decided to buck the trends and record “Nearly Human” as a band live in the studio. Few of the musicians involved had recorded that way, and the excitement of that experience worked to the album’s benefit.
“You’re performing the record, but you also realize that everything that’s in the record is in your ear and you’re hearing the record that people are going to hear when it’s finished at the same time that you’re actually performing it,” Rundgren explained. “So it puts you in this weird, euphoric, kind of mystical space.”
Wednesday
Todd Rundgren will perform his “Clearly Human” virtual tour for the Kansas City region at 8 p.m. March 3. Tickets are $35 via ToddRundgren.NoCapShows.com.