Utopia
The Calderone
Hempstead, NY
1977-03-05

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

source/lineage-TTD 2019 share of what had been shared as a "partial FM" (lineage and some notes copied and pasted at bottom)> Audacity> TLH> TTD


1.1 Overture/Communion With The Sun 6:52
1.2 When The Shit Hits The Fan (Sunset Blvd.) 3:39--->
1.3 le Feel Internacionale 2:41
1.4 The Last Ride 4:47
1.5 Love Of The Common Man 3:38
1.6 Eternal Love (cuts in) 7:36
1.7 Hiroshima (cuts out) 5:26

I'm delighted that TTD is living to see another day for many reasons, but prominent among them is the idea that some things can be shared here that can't on DIME due to their NAB restrictions. Todd Rundgren (with or without Utopia) is one such artist, and I've been happy to see some Todd shares during our recent worries about a site closure. Happily, a few more things from him/them have popped up in recent days, and I'm taking that as a cue to keep the mini flood going with a couple of Utopia shows from around the time of the RA and Oops!, Wrong Planet tours. This, and the other one that I'll soon share were up here in the past, but are no longer on the tracker. This was shared in 2019, but unlike DIME, there's no archive here that I'm aware of through which I might give props to whoever had brought it here. Needless to say, many thanks to them.
You'll see some notes from their info file pasted below that give details of where these files originated. You'll also not that they'd done some work to get the speed/pitch right, and thanks to them for that. In addition to bringing this back, I've done a little bit too in Audacity, via tools there, to make the show sound a bit better by possibly "cutting through" some of the tape generations those earlier notes refer to. A sample will show the difference. The show had a boomy and muddy quality to it, that has now hopefully been reduced a bit, although it's still far from prisine.
This was a show from the RA tour, and it is incomplete. Eternal Love and Hiroshima are incomplete tracks, and there's a tiny cut just as the final verse starts on Love of the Common Man. I saw Todd with and without Utopia many times in the NY/Long Island area back at that time, and I did see him at the Calderone, although I can't recall whether the RA show I saw was there or in NYC, but it may indeed have been this one. In the sense of spectacle, that was a very "spectacular" tour with the pyramid, Egyptian costumes, Sphynx head, and instruments to match (Todd's Ankh guitar, Kasim's bass shaped kind of like an arrow, and Roger Powell's "Probe" keyboard). Eternal Love was Kasim's first vocal feature with Utopia, and I have to say that the 7:00 excerpt here is pretty bizarre. Roger played trumpet, and Todd played sax on a few Utopia recordings. Here, on Eternal Love, there's something that sounds like the Star Wars jazz combo on Acid. It's pretty bizarre, and pretty out of context with what's essentially a heartfelt ballad, that does finally re-emerge at the end.
I saw them again, not long after. at Radio City Music Hall in NYC after Oops came out, and I remember that date being near to, or on, Halloween because Todd referred to a show Frank Zappa was playing in NYC that same night. At Radio City, they did Oops material in the Oops cover t-shirts and jeans, and then went full blown RA with "the works" later in the show. Todd fans will know that all of that RA stuff burned up in a fire in upstate NY not long afterwards.

Some pertinent notes from the earlier share of this are pasted below, and thanks again to whoever had written them and shared this music:

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Partial FM recording - repaired and retracked
Trade CD-R-->EAC-->wav-->Audacity (speed correction, tracking)--->FLAC 8 (tags)

The second half of a disc that has circulated as "Early Partials" (w/Paris
10/14/75). An FM recording, clearly a few tape generations in the lineage.
LOTCM cuts in at the very beginning, Eternal Love comes in sometime in the
middle, Hiroshima cuts out during the Roger/Todd dueling solos. Quite
listenable, the band has hit its stride here. Enjoy!

Trade freely - NEVER sell!