Utopia
1977-04-06
San Diego Civic Theater
San Diego, CA

Todd Rundgren – Vocals, Electric Guitar, Acoustic Guitar (9), Alto Saxophone (12), drums on Jealousy
Roger Powell – Keyboards, Vocals, Trumpet (12)
Kasim Sulton – Bass, Vocals, guitar on Jealousy
John “Willie” Wilcox – Drums, Percussion, Vocals, bass on Jealousy

source/lineage- FLAC files folder share of Audience Recording.

1. Pipeline/Sweet Little Susie music from intro film * 4:57
2. Overture / Communion With the Sun 7:16
3. When the Shit Hits the Fan/Sunset Blvd. 3:37
4. Le Feel Internacionale 3:39
5. The Last Ride 5:11
6. Jealousy 4:30
7. Eastern Intrigue-Love of the Common Man 9:28
8. Sunburst Finish 8:49
9. The Wheel 6:38
10.The Ikon [excerpt] 3:14
11.Emergency Splashdown 5:28
12.Eternal Love 10:34
13.Mister Triscuits 3:40
14.Something’s Coming 2:39
15.The Death of Rock and Roll 3:50
16.Heavy Metal Kids 4:10
17.Hiroshima 4:43
18.Singring and the Glass Guitar (including a snippet of Utopia) 30:18
19.Couldn’t I Just Tell You 3:52
20.Just One Victory ** 5:55

* music from pre-show film that is played by Utopia
** might've originated at another venue on this tour

Some new to me Todd/Utopia material recently popped up on another site courtesy of a generous individual who shared about a dozen such shows that seemed to be partially motivated (from what they said in a message) by the volume of Todd things that have shown up here in the last year or so on TTD. fnord also picked up some of these, and he recently shared a 1975 Utopia show from Paris that came from this same group of shows. We're both likely to share more in the weeks to come from this source, and we got the blessing from our anonymous donor of the shows to do that. He'd also said that what came along during that brief period of sharing represented all that there would be.
This is a Utopia show from near to the end of the RA touring that had started in 1976. Oops Wrong Planet was in the works, and the touring later that year would feature that material along with some RA material, but with limited reappearances of the RA costumes and set reserved for "special occasions" like a Halloween show that year at NYC's Radio City Music Hall.
The mention of this show at Warren's TR Connection boot site made it sound like this would be a very rough and "collector's only" type of show. I found it to be something I'd class as better than that. It's still not in the sonic league of a couple of Utopia's European shows from a January and February of 77, but it's pretty listenable. To make it even more so, tools from Audacity were employed and the combination of them has gotten it into the shape you'll now hear (check the samples below). There are a couple of spots where tape flips seemingly took place, and we're missing a bit of Hiroshima. There's also speculation that Just One Victory may have been tacked on from another show, but you can judge that for yourself. There appeared to be technical difficulties onstage, which you'll hear Todd speaking about prior to them being fixed before The Last Ride. Many of the songs went right into each other too, such as the rather curious pairing of Eastern Intrigue and Love of the Common Man. The show started with a group produced video that musically included a weird take the group made of Pipeline, and then something called Sweet Little Susie. Susie was also known as Angelo's Disco, and you'll hear parts of it that were used a few years later on Hoi Polloi from Deface the Music. Susie had gone into about 4 minutes of music from Isao Tomita's synthesized version of Igor Stravinsky's Firebird. That's been faded out and in as it comes from a commercially available recording. An interesting aspect of the ballad Eternal Love, from RA, is that it morphed live into a jazzy section with Roger Powell on trumpet, and Todd on alto sax. This was obviously the heyday of jazz fusion as well as Prog, and Utopia seemed to be doing a nod to that here.
This is the most complete of the US shows I've heard from this early 77 touring, and the set is different enough from those earlier mentioned European shows, that this should be a worthwhile addition to a Todd collection from this period (warts and all!).