Utopia
One Step Beyond
Santa Clara, CA
1992-05-03

Todd Rundgren: guitar and vocals
Roger Powell: keyboards, vocals
Kasim Sulton: bass, vocals
John "Willie" Wilcox: drums

source/lineage-flac download of VG+ audience recording done in a loud, crowded venue> Audacity> TLH> TTD

01 Intro Music 0:16
02 Fix Your Gaze 4:34
03 Zen Machine 5:33
04 Trapped 3:17
05 Princess Of The Universe 3:28
06 Todd speaks 1:13
07 Swing To The Right 5:25
08 Hammer In My Heart 5:11
09 Abandon City 5:44
10 stage sound and heat issues 0:57
11 Back On The Street 4:36
12 Itch In My Brain (cuts in) 3:47
13 The Ikon (excerpt) 5:28
14 Play This Game 4:47
15 stage and crowd 1:13
16 Mystified 7:42
17 Hiroshima 8:04
18 Libertine 3:59
19 Only Human 6:30
20 Love In Action 3:52
21 Caravan 8:02
22 Last Of The New Riders 5:14
23 One World 3:43
24 Love Is The Answer 5:04
25 Just One Victory 7:07


This is the US warm-up show for the 1992 Utopia reunion that led to an officially released cd and dvd from Japan. The Japanese shows were about a week after this. At the point of this show, the band hadn't performed together since about June of 1985, as their final tour coinciding with the POV album ended. It seems they'd some idea to do a few more shows after the return from Japan, but they never took place. The larger Utopia did do a few reunion shows in 2011, and the 4 piece did more in 2018. As a miscellaneous note, this show had a 1993 date, but that was not correct, and it's now as it should be.
fnord knew someone who attended this show, and he mentioned that she "Said that was the most cramped, overheated venue that night." You'll definitely get a sense of that through some of the nearby crowd yapping that's picked up along with some comments from the stage. This is being mentioned because there definitely is crowd noise between songs, but the music is nicely "front and center" during songs. Here's what Warren over at the TR Connection boot site had written:

"By far the best sounding tape (audience recording) of the tour. At the end of this show, you'll hear Todd say "...We'll see ya when we get back from Japan..." But that didn't happen. Not a board, and does have some yap at a spot or two but it's the best...a landmark show."

I'm not sure where or when I'd picked this up, but I had flac files and not a disc, so that leads me to believe it was either at DIME pre-2008, or here. I couldn't find the show when searching, though, at either place. I may have gotten it directly from the TR Connection and Warren, but my genera, memory is those swaps involving cd-r's. In any case, many thanks to whoever got it to me, and to whoever it was that recorded the show.
For this 2025 show, Audacity has been used to bring out some more depth and clarity to the music. Samples below will show how it had sounded, and how it now will sound. Audacity was also employed in retracking the show so that music will start each of the performances shown in the track list, rather than waiting through a minute or more of tuning or "Todd!!!!!!" and "Black Maria!!!" from the crowd.
This came to me with a 27 minute interview that Todd did as a promo with a Japanese DJ for the shows there. That has included nearly 10 minutes of Todd's studio recordings, so that's not being shared now as a part of this.