If shows were this good, I’d go out every night.
I went to hear “Foolish Pride” and “Black Maria,” but I got so much more.
Todd was the opener. And it was Daryl’s crowd. You could tell by the applause. It was like they didn’t realize that what they were experiencing was extremely rare. After confounding audiences for years, Todd took the stage and played…HIS GREATEST HITS!
Now this show was booked for 7:30, and it started right on the dot. Todd bounced on the stage and started singing…REAL MAN!
Your head would explode, if you were paying attention. And by that time only the diehards were. 1975’s “Initiation” was the first truly left field album, after the underrated double album “Todd” the year before.
“And my world is something you can’t see But it’s still very real to me You can find it in the hole where I keep my soul There it is, way down inside me There’s a real man Forget about my body and be a real man”
The change in the middle is delicious, it’s a rub of the tummy, it’s what endears us to music, that which we can’t truly explain but feels so good.
And from there “Love of the Common Man.” From the originals side of the album after “Initiation,” the one with the covers of sixties classics filling up the first side, “Faithful.” You know, or maybe you don’t. Todd was now a cult item, and most were not members of the cult.
But everybody in the audience knew “We Gotta Get You a Woman,” even if they didn’t know it was about Paul Fishkin. It was a semi-hit on the radio when most people didn’t know who Todd was.
And Todd played the opening cut from “Something/Anything?, “I Saw the Light,” which everybody seemed to know. But very few knew the following number, a veritable Todd Rundgren classic, “Black Maria.”
“Black Maria
You scare me so
I feel as though
My heart stop dead”
And then the guitar wails! Todd is squeezing all his talent out on the strings, and his talent is prodigious.
Now eventually “Something/Anything?” became a hit, but at first it was for fans only, who were small in number. After the Nazz, after being an engineer for the Band, Todd started out recording for Albert Grossman’s Bearsville label, distributed by Ampex. Do people today even know that was a tape company? (And recording devices too, save me the correction.) And putting an album out on that label was like…it not coming out. There were multiple versions of the first LP, the one with “We Gotta Get You a Woman,” and the second album, the piece de resistance, Todd’s absolute best work, “The Ballad of Todd Rundgren,” was the second LP on Bearsville/Ampex. You couldn’t even find them in stores. But being overproduced in numbers and not purchased, they ended up in cutout bins and they were snatched up and for years thereafter were unavailable.
But then Ampex Records cratered, Bearsville switched to Warner Bros. for distribution, and “Something/Anything?” was the beneficiary of that relationship.
You opened the gatefold cover, and there was a picture of Todd, from the back, in his studio Secret Sound. And that same image was projected on the screen last night, an homage to what once was, our belief.
And ultimately Todd played his cover of the Nazz song “Hello It’s Me,’ the audience genuflected, but what came after…
The Philly soul medley from “A Wizard/A True Star?”
If you were a fan… This was all you could want.
But even stranger, the band was Daryl’s, which freed Todd up to prowl the stage sans instrument, working the crowd, actually performing, as opposed to be being burdened by his guitar and…
I’m sitting there thinking how this is the way it was, in the seventies. If you dropped a young ‘un into the Pantages, they’d get it. Music known by heart by some of the audience, hits known by everybody, and the whole thing being hermetically sealed, only for those in attendance. No one was playing to the back row, they were just playing music. No one was dancing, there was no production, there were no hard drives… It made you want to be a musician, and I haven’t had that feeling for a very long time.
And then Daryl Hall took it up a notch.
Yes, Todd hearkened back to what once was, you could call it nostalgia, but that’s not the way the numbers were performed. It was if they were cut yesterday, Todd was giving it his all. This was very different from the classic acts knocking it out shed by shed over the summer, painting by numbers. The show had the feel of a bygone era, despite the music being so vibrant. Like I said, this was the way it once was.
As for Daryl… Do you know anybody who doesn’t like this kind of music, you know, R&B influenced?
Everybody in attendance did, and there were no youngsters, everybody looked old and decrepit, just like me. They had many miles on them, but they remembered when music was everything, when they had to go to the show, not to shoot selfies, not to be able to tell someone, but because they needed to resonate with the sound, it was the elixir of life, and everybody there last night wanted another hit.
So Daryl bounces on stage, and launches into a couple of solo numbers. He’s playing guitar, a different one on each number, performing like it was the only thing anybody ever wanted to do in life.
Yes, it was palpable last night, the guys on stage were having fun! And fun is the one thing that money can’t buy. And too many calcified boomers have given up on fun, they’re too old, afraid of risk, and then these two septuagenarians take the stage as if the seventies were yesterday, they’re so into it. Sure, it was a performance. But it wasn’t that far removed from the garage. What I mean is everybody had paid their dues, they’d jumped through the hoops, they’d become professional musicians, that was their calling, their life’s work, and they can still do it and enjoy it, maybe more, to this day.
I mean Daryl Hall has nothing to prove. And if it’s only about money, he can partner with John Oates and play the hits in arenas to those who just want to relive the past.
Which is what most of these acts are doing. If you don’t think it’s all about the money…
And then Daryl played “Foolish Pride.”
“And I’ve got this foolish price
And pride goes before a fall
Yeah, I’ve got this foolish pride”
It’s the best cut on 1986’s “Three Hearts in the Happy Ending Machine.” I bought it, didn’t you? I guess not. But we were fans, we bought everything our favorites put out, and we spun them to the point they revealed themselves to us.
And I’d never heard “Foolish Pride” live before.
Daryl eventually put down the axe and sat behind the piano and played his version of “Everytime You Go Away,” you know, the number Paul Young had a giant hit with, you can picture the video in your mind’s eye.
But the Hall & Oates version is a little slower, a little more emphatic. Daryl was sitting at the piano and wringing every last emotion out of the number. And yes, he was playing the piano after the guitar. This guy was skilled, he was a musician.
One of the absolute highlights was a cover of Eurythmics’ “Here Comes the Rain Again,” with just an acoustic guitar accompaniment to Daryl’s piano and vocal. Didn’t sound like the original, but it resonated even more.
We got “Sara Smile,” the real breakthrough, from the first RCA album, the “Silver Album” if you bought it early enough in its run, it had a foil cover, but then gray cardboard, just like “Wheels of Fire.”
“When I feel cold, you warm me
And when I feel I can’t go on
You come and hold me
It’s you and me forever”
SARA SMILE!”
Yes, about Daryl’s then girlfriend, a flight attendant. But the mood of the music along with the lyrics…you can see your own life in the song. The music sets you free. It’s anything but the assault we’ve got today
And by this time, heads were exploding, as if Oprah had given away cars. And you’ve got all these old people, standing and weaving, dancing, entranced by the music, it could have been 1975, but it was also 2023, because some songs, some music, is timeless.
And then came “I Can’t Go for That (No Can Do).”
This was monstrous in 1981, at the advent of MTV. This was the heyday, this was when Hall & Oates were the biggest band in the land, years after they’d begun.
“Yeah, I, I’ll do anything
That you want me to
Yeah, I’ll do almost anything
That you want me to”
The pre-chorus, it’s the magic, Daryl effortlessly evidencing his vocal talent, so sweet, so resonant. Man, he’s playing this song and I’m standing up swaying, with my head in the air, singing along. And nobody was looking at me, because everybody else was standing up too. And although we were all together it was a personal experience, my entire life scrolling through my brain, it was transcendent, and it built and went on and when it was done we were all nearly exhausted.
Daryl left the stage, we couldn’t ask for more, but then Todd came out and sat on a stool, Daryl stood behind the electric keyboard, and they knocked out “Wait for Me,” from the stiff “X-Static,” a minor hit song at best. Hall & Oates had triumphed in 1976 with “Rich Girl,” and then they couldn’t find their way back, album after album did worse commercially, they even ended up playing clubs. And by time they put out 1980’s “Voices,” they resorted to a cover, “You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feelin’,” in a desperate search for a hit, but it didn’t, but…
So, they’re duetting on “Wait for Me,” always an engaging number, and then came…
The best of “Mink Hollow,” Todd’s “Can We Still Be Friends.”
“We can’t play this game anymore
But can we still be friends”
Now Daryl’s taking the lead. And when the song evolves, Todd’s adding little asides, and body movements, taking the song to a whole ‘nother level.
And then the two Philly souls do an extended cover of “Didn’t I (Blow Your Mind This Time)” by the Delfonics.
Every boomer knows this song, from when AM still meant something, before there was FM in every car, never mind a tape deck, when there still wasn’t even an FM rock station in many markets.
So these guys are up there showing their roots, truly blowing our minds. They’re in a trance, it’s almost as if we’re not even there, they’re so into it.
You don’t get this every night, you almost never get it at all, but here on a Monday, when most people stay home, these two were taking us to heaven and beyond. It was truly spectacular. Not in the jaw-dropping way, but in a religious way, they were channeling the divine and we were along for the ride.
And then Todd left the stage, Daryl started pounding out the notes on the keyboard, and it was clear to everybody in the building, this was YOU MAKE MY DREAMS COME TRUE!
Everybody jumped up, as if they’d gotten a hypodermic to the ass, they couldn’t help but move around, nearly mindless, uniting who they once were with who they are now, seeing the long continuum of life coming together, they’re still here, they’re still alive, and so is Daryl Hall. He’s not running on fumes, he’s giving it his all, he’s got the music in him.
“Kiss on My List” was the surprise comeback track on “Voices,” it went all the way to number one, Hall & Oates were back in the hit parade, something that rarely happens once you’ve gone.
But this was only the beginning, as great as “Kiss on My List” is, it’s one of the best things in life, it was followed up by “You Make My Dreams.”
“What I want you’ve got and it might be hard to handle But like a flame that burns the candle, the candle feeds the flame”
An electric number, as if the band plugged into a socket, and the electricity poured over the audience, we were jumping as if we’d been electrocuted.
“Well, well, well you
You make my dreams come true”
But then there’s that moment, almost two-thirds of the way through the song, the change.
“Well, listen to this
Ow!”
The instrumental break, you’re twisting and turning, it’s so simple, but it’s like you’re doubled-up after being squeezed in a bear hug, it’s something only music can do, can make you feel, it’s so simple, yet so right.
And it’s got nothing to do with spandex. Dancing. Acrobatics. The song is enough, nothing else is needed, the music infiltrates your body and makes you feel alive, even if your significant other dumped you, you lost your job, your money, “You Make My Dreams” makes life worth living.
And then the band left the stage. I really expected “She’s Gone,” you know how they like to let you down easy, calm you down before you exit the building, but the band ended on a high note, giving it their all, and you believed they could go all night, maybe they were going to an all-hours club to continue, because that’s what they do, and they can do it forever, and they’d play for free if they had to, because this is who they are.
But this is who you are. From back when you knew the hits, when they enlivened society, when they permeated the culture, when they were bigger than anything and everything today. And even though it’s forty years old ,”You Make My Dreams” sounds just as fresh as yesterday. Which is pretty amazing if you think about it.
So the lights came up and I was on a high. As was the assembled multitude. In this theatre, on a weekday night, we’d been provided with the essence of music, the essence of rock and roll.
Our parents went to hear classical music, maybe an old jazz performer, maybe even a crooner, but they were not like us, their progeny. Music is one of our basic building blocks, more important than milk and vitamins. It was everywhere and everything.
It made our dreams come true!
Spotify playlist: https://tinyurl.com/2av6ejdv
