Todd Rundgren's AWATS: While I was travelling

As I have been away on extended holiday, tons of things have been going on and I have been remiss in attending to them from a reporting perspective. My bad. So to make up for past sins, here's a musical update:

One of those things has been Todd Rundgren's restaging of his classic album from 1973, A Wizard A True Star, AWATS, which premiered in Akron, Ohio on 6, September this year. Make sure to click on the previous link and see a selection of highlights from the show. The following clip is just one example of how a "concept album" translates to the live stage:



In March, 2003, Barney Hoskyns wrote the following in Mojo Magazine (UK) regarding the album AWATS:

"Sometimes," Todd Rundgren sang, "I don't know what to feel." But sometimes you do know what to feel. And right now I feel like saying what I've contended for many years, which is that Rundgren's A Wizard, A True Star is simply The Greatest Album Ever Made.

You heard me right, pardner. Better than Pet Sounds. Better than OK Computer. Certainly better than Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Farts Dub Band. An album of vaulting ambition - of wizardry and true stardom - released into an unsuspecting world by a contrary, super-precocious wonderboy who should have been the biggest thing to happen in the '70s but who was just too complex and polymorphous for lasting pop success.

A Wizard, A True Star came out 35 years ago but still sounds more bravely futuristic than any ostensibly cutting-edge electro-pop being made in the 21st Century. A dizzying, intoxicating rollercoaster ride of emotions and genre mutations, the album was substantially the work of Rundgren himself, pieced together in late 1972 at his own Secret Sound studio on NYC's West 24th Street."

Coming in February of 2010, this show will visit the UK & The Netherlands. I hope to catch it there with my partner and will make sure to post a full review. Thanks to Doug at RundgrenRadio.com for the Barney Hoskyns snippet and a big hey to all those stateside who have been lucky enough to have seen the show. I hope to join you in 2010!