Review

It is sad to see that the genius Todd Rundgren is so little known by people or not hip enough. In my opinion the world's greatest mind in pop music had to play in front of I say about 100 old people and maybe 10 youngsters in Bonn Germany. 50% was Dutch by the way. Not good for Todd but fine to me. Never in my life I had the chance to sit on a barstool sipping a big german beer jump around, smoke and make pictures and having the band on an armlength reach. Great and the sound was good, not to loud and altough some minor P.A bass guitar problems and Kasim's Tritons disfunctions in the beginning this was a great show. The crowd's age was old (including myself) but also very and I mean very cheerful.

Todd looked a bit dissapointed in the beginning made a remark about his only concert in Germany and the fact that we were "all" there, but later they got more losen up because of the cheering hysteric audience.

The band started with Black and White than did a song I can,t remember anymore because of my age I think.

but I can remember a fabulous Black Maria ooh it scared me so, shivers down the spine very Back to the Bars like only Todd sang it with a different timing, starting later , sing faster, very dynamicly sung.

and great guitar solo's also. Rachel Haden is a welcome visual aspect within the band, She's awsome pretty but can use some blues from her dad and skip the woodyness. Maybe she's a non smoker at was a bit shortbreasted by all the smoke or her bass was to heavy, (recommended Todd afterwards to buy her a Chinese reissue Danelectro Longhorn shortscale bass, fits her punklook and is easy to carry!) But the main aspect was teamwork and that's what it was.

The whole Arena album was played solidly with Todd explaining the crowd where to participate and everybody did of course.

Todd's Scott Bonn act was also great he sang like a madman like he did in Mad. They sang very stable and the choirs where great with Kasim and Rachel. Jesse Gress is for Todd what Steve Vai was for Zappa.

I suppose, never saw him live before and when he first appeared he looked a bit like Todd 20 years ago.

Just one Victory in the encore was one of the highlights for me and I had a fantastic evening and after an hour of waitng the die hards got their fotoshoots and autograms.

By the way there was a funny guy dressed up like an indian or do I have to say native american playing on a guitar as support act playing A dream goes on Forever and some political anti songs. he was funny and relaxed was cool and had a nice relativism kind of non show with a plastic shield instead of a band and wanted to know everybody's shoesize!

In short this was a very vivid performance that had the anger of a 20 year old testosteron filled punkrocker combined with the power of Lau Tse, Godzilla en Stephen Hawking.!!!! Thanx people it was great, nice place nice people.

René van Kuijk

The Netherlands

ps , had no spellingchecker so excuse my english