Melbourne Show

Todd Rundgren was so awful it was embarrassing. People were actually leaving during his "performance." He treated his entire set like a big joke and all his comments were insincere and cynical. He made mistakes in every song he attempted and called attention to every incorrect chord and blown lyric. He could not even complete I Saw the Light. He forgot the chords to Hello It's Me and the lyrics to It Wouldn't Have Made Any Difference. He couldn't get the settings right on his guitar and didn't have any picks on stage. He stepped on his guitar chord twice during a song and pulled it out of the guitar, stopping in the middle of the song to secure it properly. He angrily ripped the lower E string out of his guitar during While My Guitar Gently Weeps. I mean he wasn't even trying to give a performance. Each song got progressively worse. It was obvious he didn't even rehearse before this performance. He had no set list and he was simply pulling songs out the air. He had to resort to songs he could actually remember and went to Beloved Infidel and Lunatic Fringe back to back, the two songs he played solo on the Liars tour all last year. Then, he played One World, which looked to be about three chords. Todd cared little about his presence and laughed off the whole evening. This was incredibly sad to see. Ironically, the one song he performed well was Pretending To Care. Rather than the headliner, he should have opened for Ehtel and Joe Jackson, who were incredbly well prepared and rehearsed, and actually wanted to perform for the audience. You would think someone who wrote and performed all these songs consistently over a 30-year period would know how to play them all the way through. I will never see him solo again. He needs the support of a band, or at least the discipline to rehearse the material at least once before attempting to go onstage before a packed house. I would much rather have seen a full night of Joe Jackson and Ethel. Todd was definitely amateur hour.