Clearly Human Virtual Tour

In a six-decade career that has seen him stretch the concept of live performance, this year’s Clearly Human Virtual Tour might be Todd Rundgren’s most ambitious project yet. Joining a 10-piece band for a run of 25 livestreamed shows performed at a single venue in Chicago, Rundgren intends to create the illusion of a full US tour, with each concert tailored to a specific city and local fanbase…

What can we expect from the Clearly Human Virtual Tour?

“With a one-off special livestream broadcast, you can reach your entire audience at once, but you give up a lot of what they’ve come to expect, which is that you’ve travelled to their town, just to do a show for them.And for us, as performers, just doing one show, you don’t get the kind of longterm satisfaction that you get from doing a show over and over again, and getting better at it, discovering new things, and having different interactions night to night. So the thing that’s really different about Clearly Human is the fact it’s really a tour, rather than just one show.We’re going to some effort to make everything feel local – and to self-hypnotise ourselves into believing that we’re in that particular locality.”

You’ll be performing 1989’s Nearly Human album in full, along with other fan favourites. Why choose that record? “After I made Nearly Human, I took it out on the road with a 10-piece band backing me up, almost like an R&B revue. For this year’s Clearly Human Virtual Tour, we’re bringing all that back. Under any other circumstances, I wouldn’t be able to transport this many people and infrastructure around.Y’know, 10 people and all the gear that’s needed for them – it kinda puts me on the edge of either making just a little bit of money, or losing money.”

You’ve been pushing the limits of live shows for years. What’s the appeal? “Very early in my career, I kinda latched on to the idea that there’s this world of possibilities out there, and that certainly applies to whatever we can do live.There’s a lot of stuff I was using that at one point seemed ahead of the game. I mean, Utopia was using video as an integral part of our show back in the 70s. Now, everybody’s got a video wall…!”

Todd Rundgren’s Clearly Human Virtual Tour runs until 22 March. Visit the virtual Box Office at www.nocapshows.com

“The first phase of Utopia was probably when I was playing the best guitar of my career… [My level of technique has] not gone beyond that”