TODD RUNDGREN LIVE at the FILLMORE 4

• published: 09 Dec 2014
• views: 2

WHERE IS ROBERT CHRISTGAU TODAY? Christgau was an influential VILLAGE VOICE music critic who wrote those kind of damning-with-faint-praise cheeky asshole COMMENTS THAT PASS AS CRITICISM types of reviews. Just off the cuff inanity from lesser minds that aspire to be the Hunter S. Thompsons of rock and roll criticism. WHERE IS ROBERT CHRISTGAU TODAY? I just saw a lively, spirited performance on the legendary stage of San Francisco's FILLMORE theater given by one of Christgau's favorite targets, TODD RUNDGREN. An INCENDIARY performance of FIRE. No, not the Ohio Players tune, the one by The Crazy World of Arthur Brown". (You want to see a video 30 years ahead of it's time, I highly recommend you seek out Brown's version of his tune here on YOUTUBE). Todd's current band seems like his bands of old. All spot-on professionals still full of FIRE...Kasim's voice is unchanged, as powerful and uplifting as ever...Prarie Prince? Really, truly, the Ringo of his times, what with The TUBES and all...Only, Todd plays occasionally with Ringo's All-Stars, so Ringo is still the Ringo of his times... Still Prarie Prince is one of the greats, along with the just COOL laid back, melodic style of Jesse Gress, who could be the Bill Wyman of his time only Bill Wyman plays bass but hasn't in quite some time, I believe, s it is okay for Jesse to assume his unaffected MOJO... One of the greatest bandleaders ever...Christgau said that Todd was a terrible bandleader... ....and I quote (see, I hang on to shit like this): "Todd Rundgren bandleader is a disaster. A humorless rock progressive whose scientific know-how adds no saving details to his arid futurism." Well, here we are in the future. I just saw Todd Rundgren a few weeks ago...haven't heard from Christgau in any way, shape or form since the early 90's. Rundgren is still VITAL. He is still here because he had to IGNORE smug, college-boy idiots like Christgau and his ilk to create his works of aural magic. Tunes that stand up to anything The Beatles ever did...Obviously, Ringo agrees. Christgau once described his joy at being in a room full of famous critics like himself. What could be more humorless? More drab? More nauseatingly insidious? Todd Rundgren, 2014, November 24th? Hell of a bandleader just packed with humor and vitality... Just check out this version of FIRFE (of which I missed the opening I AM THE GOD OF HELLFIRE" part because my batteries ran out. I resigned myself to missing the rest of the concert... Then I remembered that hated cell phone...!!! Technology saved the damn day, for once. For 12 minutes or so, at least. Missed my brother's current favorite Todd tune "PAST", but we had no time for regrets, for it was 10:00 pm, the garage was 8 blocks away and we had to RUN for it, for they locked up and towed your car away after 10:30!!! Took an ill-advised turn down Golden Gate and we were farther away than when we started. Then my brother hurt his durned ankle...I had to leave him behind...BOOKED for the garage...arrived at 10;27 I swear to God...dealt with a gate that would not open or take my card...dealt with a surly attendant...took a wrong turn UP a one-way street, everybody was yelling...SO FRICKEN WHAT? Did a bad-ass flip around...Parked... Called my brother just as he limped into view past the Starbucks,,, TODD. KASIM. JESSE. PRARIE. Todd's current touring and recording band. AWESOME. Christgau? Who knows? Who cares? The man even gave the classic SOMETHING/ANYTHING a cheeky review because "because this has the feel of a pop masterpiece, and feel counts"... I wish I could print the entire review. You never encounter a critic going so far out of his way to deny an artist his due. The superior tone is maddening. See, Christgau was one of the Old Guard. Those Dylan-lovers who thought Lay Lady Lay was the highest form of musical achievement...Christgau couldn't see what was then THE FUTURE because he let his ego get in the way, couldn't accept the new forms... Don't let it happen to YOU because it will mean that you got OLD. EMBRACE CHANGE. Todd always has. It is why he is still here today. Todd Rundgren is STILL relevant. Not fade away, as Buddy Holly would have said. The Duke Ellington of his time. Just ONE. Just one John Lennon. One Marvin Gaye. One Brian Wilson. ONE TODD RUNDGREN. None Robert Christgau.