Lost performances - FOUND!!!
philip d dangelo | Morganton, NC United States | 02/14/2002
(4 out of 5 stars)
"When Todd Rundgren was in a state of flux, he and his record company thought about a doubble LIVE album set to cement his commercial appeal. This was hoped to happen along the lines of Peter Frampton's and others live hits. At this time, Todd had already broken up the old six piece Utopia and toured with the pared down 4 piece pop group to mixed results. He then spent time alone in the studio and recorded the gem THE HERMIT OF MINK HOLLOW. On the heals of this fine record came the legendary live concerts from which BACK TO THE BARS, the two album live set was culled from. Unfortunatly BACK TO THE BARS was a disapointment, sound quality was only fair and the problem was not the songs that were on it but the performances that were left out! The live performances featured many of the great songs from Todd's current album HERMIT OF MINK HOLLOW but the live album had none of these. These songs are now included on this fine disk, great hits like CAN WE STILL BE FRIENDS, BREAD, DETERMINATION, YOU CRIED WOLF are offset by old favorites HELLO IT'S ME, LOVE IS THE ANSWER, JUST ONE VICTORY and the unrecorded gem , written by pianist Moggy Klingman LADY FACE! I would highly recomend this disk as well as the set from BOTTOM LINE in NY that is also available as an import. These two CDs show what those concerts were truly like, Todd was playing his greatest songs with the guys he actually hung around with while he wrote them, the Hello People, ex-Utopian Moogy Klingman on piano as well as the current Utopia set up of Willie Wilcox on drums, Kasim Sultan on bass and Roger Powell on keyboards and synthesisers. The only thing this CD does not convey is the beautiful ballerina who danced to CAN WE STILL BE FRIENDS, anyone who saw and heard these wonderful concerts would know what I mean!! The only reason I gave this four intead of five stars is the sound quality is good but could have been better."
Track Listings (15) - Disc #1