As movie theaters go, it was one of the BIG old ones, and is elegant in an edgy sort of way. Not quite the equal of the Pabst in Milwaukee for acoustics, it makes up for the longer reverberation time and resonances with lots of power in the amps and lots of surface area in the drivers in the speaker stacks. My friends, the Bobs, and I hung out near the Front of House mix position and had really good sound all night. One of the Bobs is an accomplished acoustician by trade, and was quite impressed with the wall treatments and other efforts to improve the sonics of the space.

Right after "I Hate My Frickin' ISP", Todd complimented the crowd for having bought into tickets for the evening's show early. Everyone loved it, 'cause the place had been sold out for more than a month and was packed to the gills. It was Standing Room Only for me and the Bobs, as well as close to 100 other folks who couldn't find seats.

The funniest thing TR said tonight was when he started talking about the difficulty the Republicans seemed to be having in fielding a Presidential candidate, and how Mitt Romney had flunked out as an astronaut, when he answered the trick question: "How many wives WOULD you have, if you COULD?" with "I wanna make the whole country my bitch!!"'

After TR broke a string much earlier in the show than usual, he warned us that a rumor was goin' around about there being a bad shipment of guitar strings in the house, so "anything can happen". Shortly after that, "Lunatic Fringe" was postponed in the set list so that foamy could be re-strung.

This packed house of mostly TR fanatics was losin' it all night long. . . and I was glad I could be here for it.

The encores were even more powerful tonight than at the earlier shows I've seen. . . "Hawking" was especially moving, Kasim's vocals on "Trapped" were as strong as the night I heard him sing it in California at the US Practice show for the "Utopia Redux" tour of Japan, and Worldwide Epiphany was overpoweringly compelling.

Even with a night off between Milwaukee and Chicago, Todd's voice was really showing the strain of deep-winter touring in the upper midwest. There were several times when he didn't hit his normal high notes in the middle of lines, saving himself for the ends of verses and songs. However, his strategy of saving his voice for the most important places in the songs really paid off when he did "Hawking" in the encore. That delicate falsetto he has was simply scintillating. As much energy as he invests in each show, I still marvel at the robustness of his voice after all these shows over all these years, and I'm thankful that he's still out here doing them for us.

Only four more shows to go, and then it's winter hiatus for Todd, and shortly after that Kasim will be doing another run of his wonderful solo shows. I hear that there's a real surprise in store for us on Kas's winter tour, so plan to take one in if you can.

Other websites:
TRConnection.com has some reviews and photos of this gig here.
There are some close-up photos of Kasim by Jim Snyder on TRC here and here.

Comments posted by fans on mailing lists and messageboards include:
"The show rocked from start to finish."

"Kasim wore a great long sleeve light blue shirt with a black jacket."

"Two hours of nonstop hard-hitting fun, broken guitar strings, on-stage silliness, and fantastic music."

"It was so great to see Kaz, Jesse, and Prairie. The band is magic together."

"My personal favorite of the night was "Trapped". It's always great to me to hear Todd trading vocals with Kasim, reminiscent of the old Utopia days."

"Kasim threw my 11 year-old daughter a pick and on the way home she said that he was awesome and asked me if we had Trapped at home so she could put it on her ipod!"

"The band seemed to truly enjoy playing the knock down rock they performed that night,especially Kasim Sulton who was all smiles that night."

"Jesse, Kasim, and Prairie were amazing!"

"Chicago has always loved Todd and Kasim! Two sold out shows proves that."

The venue (taken from the KasimInfo.com Blog that day):
Tonight Kasim Sulton plays the 7th concert of the Todd Rundgren January 2008 Tour. The concert is at Park West in Chicago, IL.

The concert tonight starts at 8.00pm and doors open at 6.30pm. Tickets were $52.50 each but they all sold out several weeks ago! (An extra gig has been added at this venue on 01/30.) Click here to view the venue website. The website describes the venue as "The 11,000 square-foot facility with 5 tiered levels, large balconies, 7 bars, and comfortable booths is both beautiful and practical in design". It was built in the 1920s and opened in 1925 as the Park Lane Vaudeville Theater. It was converted to the Town Theater movie theater from 1935 through until the 1960s and then it converted to Park West (a night club) in the 1970s.

The last time that Kasim Sulton played in Chicago was almost a year ago now. It was Saturday 27th January and he played a solo gig at The Abbey Pub. After next weeks gig, the next time that Kasim will be back in Chicago is for his own gig on Friday 21st March back at The Abbey Pub!

Todd Rundgren 2008 Tour