Todd Rundgren & the Hello People
Aquarius Theatre
Boston, MA
1972-05-18

Todd Rundgren-vocals, guitar, piano
Tom Cosgrove-guitar and vocals
Stu Woods-Bass
Norman Smart-Drums
Zack "Head" Lang-keys
Larry Tasse-Keys
Gregg Geddes-horns
Bobby Sedita-vocals

source/lineage-flac folder digital share of VG+ (particularly for the time) audience capture on unknown equipment> Audacity> TLH> TTD

01 Broke Down and Busted 4:25
02 Piss Aaron 7:30
03 It wouldn't Have Made Any Difference 3:52
04 I Saw the Light 3:06
05 Hello It's Me 4:09
06 Blaze 4:04
07 Lady On The Terrace 4:47
08 Georgia Swing 3:34
09 SLUT 1:17
10 Todd Explains Sabotage from Jeff Beck's camp 0:35

On the Todd side of things, this is definitely very close to the birth of his days as a solo performer. It's post Nazz, and slots in near to the point at which his 3rd album, Something/Anything had come out (February, 1972). That also made it post-Runt, in that S/A came out under Todd's own name, rather than something including the Runt branding. As for Utopia, this performance is about a year before any version of that band hit the stage. Todd's backing band for this is a coouple of musicians who were on S/A (Cosgrove and Woods). It also was collaborative with the Hello People, who had been around since the late 60's. They would go on to back Todd on his Back to the Bars tour in 1978. Todd also produced a couple of their albums in the mid 70's, and those records included them covering some Todd songs like Just One Victory and It Wouldn't Have Made any Difference.
Some live things that are contemporary with this Boston show have been officially released. His bandcamp site offers a recording with the same folks here from a few weeks earlier. That came from Ultrasonic Studios on Long Island, and that had once circulated extensively as a boot. Some other things from this time havew also popped up in Todd compilations like Live at the BBC, Somewhere/Anywhere, and Box of Todds, but nothing from this Boston show has been officially released.
This Boston set came to me with a bunch of other Todd materials from burnboy (huge thanks, of course, to him), but I'd sat on it for a while until fnord got the ball rolling on prepping this for a 2025 outing at TTD. We've just missed the 53rd anniversary of this show (!!!) by a couple of days. fnord sent over his copy of this, and we each compared them to the burnboy copy (seeming to have come from "kinlin"), and the kinlin/burnboy version seemed to probably have a few less generations, as revealed in a bit more clarity and depth. Clarity and depth were lightly enhanced a bit more for this new version via some EQ and Mastering tools in Audacity. Some digi-gaps were found in a few of the tracks and they also were repaired in Audacity, as were a few short volume discrepancies. Sonically, the biggest issue was at the start of the show with Broke Down and Busted. You'll actually hear tape being turned on as the song is joined in progress, but then loudness and speed levels fluctuate through the first 25-30 seconds, but thankfully even out at that point through to the end and the famous plug pulling episode.
Todd shared the bill that night in Boston with the 2nd edition of the Jeff Beck Group, and a unique moment is captured in this audio when it seems that somebody in the Beck camp literally "pulled the plug" on some of the amps Todd's group was using. That took place early in the performance of SLUT, and you'll hear that and the aftermath in a newly re-tracked Track 10. Here's an account of what happened from Warren's Boot Page at the TR Connection. It was supplied by someone named Brian McKeen, who attended the show:
"I was sitting off stage and saw the whole thing with the sound. He opened for Jeff Beck and I don't remember them shutting down the whole PA but I did see someone, looked like either Jeff or Cozy Powell, crawl on stage behind the amps, and pull the power on Todd's amp just as he was starting to play Slut... "
This additional bit came along with info in the files that burnboy shared. This info somehow ties into details on youtube:
"Jeff Beck's sound crew pulled the plug on Todd cutting his show short, I believe he was given 45 minutes but only played 35. Not sure if Todd pissed off the crew because of complaining about the lighting and technical issues but apparently the PA showed up late so they had no soundcheck and because of that Todd's set was cut short."
Ahh, that glamorous rock n roll life of musicians......Thanks in this century to fnord, burnboy, and kinlin for being directly responsible in some ways for this new share. Thanks too to those in the previous century who made this recording and to others who've kept it circulating.
enjoy!