![\"\"](\"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/todd_nearly_human2.jpg\")
Even in the face of widespread venue closures, Todd Rundgren has found a way to bring live music to his fans. His run of shows had one of its final dates when he played for a Bay Area audience on March 19. But he and his band didn\u2019t come to San Francisco; they were in Chicago for the \u201cClearly Human\u201d virtual tour.<\/p>\n
Todd Rundgren\u2019s career is remarkable on many levels. He\u2019s notable in his ongoing quest to harness the power of technology, doing so as part of a larger mission to find new and better ways to connect with his audience. An early example is his September 9, 1973 trip to San Francisco, his first visit here as a performer. \u201cI didn\u2019t do a whole lot of touring on the West Coast in those days,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n
That would soon change, and it all started with a most unusual live event at Golden Gate Park. \u201cThere\u2019s a song on the [1974] Todd<\/i> album called \u2018Sons of 1984,\u2019\u201d Rundgren explains. His vision for the song was to have his audience participate in the recording. So when he played the tune live a few weeks earlier at Wollman Rink in New York City\u2019s Central Park, he first taught the audience the lyrics to the chorus of the rousing, hopeful tune.<\/p>\n
And Rundgren brought those tapes along with him to Golden Gate Park. \u201cWe set up onstage with speakers, and then we taught the song to the audience in San Francisco,\u201d he recalls. \u201cWe played back the recording and had the San Francisco crowd sing along.\u201d Listen to the finished recording and you\u2019ll hear the New York audience in the right audio channel; the left speaker features the crowd from Golden Gate Park. \u201cAnd then,\u201d Rundgren points out, \u201cat the end of the song they’re all singing together, so it’s sort of the entire country.\u201d<\/p>\n
Even in normal times, \u201cSongs of 1984\u201d is one of Rundgren\u2019s lump-in-the-throat numbers, a tune that stands with \u201cHello It\u2019s Me,\u201d \u201cCompassion,\u201d \u201cCan We Still Be Friends,\u201d \u201cJust One Victory\u201d and select others as songs with deep emotional resonance. And in times of pandemic when audiences haven\u2019t been able to enjoy the communal experience of a live concert in more than a year, a listen to \u201cSons of 1984\u201d \u2013 with its massed chorus of unison singers \u2013 might just bring a tear to the listener\u2019s eye.<\/p>\n
In 1990, Rundgren embarked on another unusual project that involved San Francisco. Booking five nights at the Palace of Fine Arts, Rundgren and his band recorded the entirety of what would be his 13th<\/sup> solo album, 2<\/i>nd<\/i><\/sup> Wind<\/i>, live in front of the gathered audience. But it\u2019s not a live album in the traditional sense; the audience was asked to keep quiet. While the finished recording captures the energy of a live performance, crowd nose is completely absent. It\u2019s as highly polished a recording as the masterful producer-musician has ever done.<\/p>\n And 2<\/i>nd<\/i><\/sup> Wind<\/i> is something of a companion to the album that came before it, 1989\u2019s Nearly Human<\/i>. Thirty-plus years later, faced with the challenge of how to connect with his audience during a pandemic, Rundgren turned again to the soulful, uplifting, quasi-spiritual material of that \u201889 release. He recalls that in the late 1980s, music technology had taken a turn toward overdubbing. That meant \u201ccleaner\u201d recordings, but it often removed the in-person feel that comes from musicians and singers being together in the room, making music together.<\/p>\n Rundgren missed that human connection. \u201cSo I decided that I would do Nearly Human<\/i> all live in the studio,\u201d he says. \u201cNo matter how big or small the production was, it was everyone playing at the same time.\u201d He believes that something mystical happens with that method of recording. \u201cYou\u2019re performing it in the present, but you\u2019re hearing [what it will sound like] in the future,\u201d he says. As a result of Rundgren\u2019s back-to-basics approach, Nearly Human<\/i> ranks among his most \u201corganic\u201d sounding releases.<\/p>\n And so in 2020, Rundgren began plans to revive and celebrate Nearly Human<\/i> by means of a virtual tour. Setting up his ten-piece band in a \u201cblack box\u201d venue in Chicago, Rundgren organized a 25-date virtual tour for February and March, one that would narrowcast to a different city each night. With sounds and images transmitted live over a secure internet channel, Rundgren and his band performed most of Nearly Human<\/i> along with several 2<\/i>nd<\/i><\/sup> Wind<\/i> tracks and select other favorites. The two-hour concerts made use of \u201cgeofencing\u201d technology that can restrict viewership to audiences located in or near the targeted cities.<\/p>\n Though the geofencing aspect of the shows would eventually be relaxed, each of the concerts on the virtual tour was given as much local flavor as possible. \u201cWe try to preserve as much as possible in terms of the whole [concert] experience,\u201d Rundgren says, \u201cfor both the band and the audience. Iconic local images are projected on the wall behind the band, including (when possible) a shot of the proscenium stage of the venue that the band would have been playing. The whole affair has all of the production values of a finished concert DVD; the difference is that it happens in real time.<\/p>\n Seated comfortably and safely at home, VIP ticket holders have their images displayed on large monitors placed in the front few rows of the Chicago venue, so the band onstage can view them and their reactions. A dozen or so actual concertgoers are allowed in, seated between the monitors. So there\u2019s even a bit of actual applause between the songs in the 23-song set.<\/p>\n There are any number of technical challenges facing a venture like the \u201cClearly Human\u201d tour. And in many ways, Rundgren may be acting as the proverbial canary in the coal mine. \u201cNot only do I<\/i> have to worry about what sort of demand there might be for a virtual tour,\u201d he says with candor, \u201cthe entire industry has to worry about what sort of enthusiasm there will be in the audience to go out and be in a crowd again.\u201d But as with much of Rundgren\u2019s work, he asks himself one important question: \u201cWhat can you do for the audience?\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Even in the face of widespread venue closures, Todd Rundgren has found a way to bring live music to his fans. His run of shows had one of its final […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":20748,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[41,44,62],"tags":[2228],"class_list":["post-20741","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-interview","category-live-shows","category-rawk","tag-todd-rundgren","cat-41-id","cat-44-id","cat-62-id","has_thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20741","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20741"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20741\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20749,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20741\/revisions\/20749"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20748"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20741"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20741"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20741"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}