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Road To Utopia Abandon City Back On The Steet Hammer In My Heart Trapped The Ikon Caravan Last Of The New Wave Riders
Second Set: Just One Victory "The opening band was Utopia (minus Willy) as Prairie Prince filled in for him. Todd and the boys nailed it and it was great seeing Roger Powell back and sounding as great as ever. Utopia was worth the price of admission." "The evening started with Roger, Todd, Kasim and Prairie Prince dressed in white T's and black playing several Utopia favorites like Caravan, Libertine, Trapped and so on. They played for about 40 minutes then took a break to set up for the AWATS album debut!"
 "Once the lights dropped and the opening sounds to "Road to Utopia" started, the crowd stood and NEVER sat down. Barely rehearsed, they sounded great. All voices were perfect. Todd seemed surprised when Kasim strapped on the 5 string bass to play Caravan. Again...a great effort considering the time spent on Wizard...and probably not much time on the Utopia reunion rehearsals." "First of all, the back up band was Utopia (without Willie) Prairie is an EXCELLENT FIT. They came out (Todd, Kasim, Roger and Prairie) in front of the closed curtain and started with ROAD TO UTOPIA, OMG, OMG, OMG, honestly I was such in shock I only remember a little bit of the song! I swear that is one of my favorite Utopia songs! I don't remember all they played and for how long, remember I was in a state of shock!!! I was just enjoying it for as long as I could. I know Kasim sang 3 songs and Roger sang Abandon City and Caravan! Everyone looked Great with their black pants and their white t-shirts."
 "There were a few hic-ups as this was opening night but nothing the band did not quickly overcome." "Weaved into the night were solo performances by Kasim and Roger on keyboards. Greg Hawkes assisted Kasim on keyboard to fill the stage with the lineup of performers that completed the job!" "Glad Kasim to sing Does Anybody Love You - a very sweet moment and I enjoyed going back and forth between Kasim and Todd for Sometimes I Don't Know What To Feel." "All in all the second set lasted roughly an hour and fifteen minutes and of course was topped by the encore song "Just one victory"." "For the second set the curtain was raised and the 6 guys were in White Suits, they looked so SHARP!" "Kasim was the shizit, as usual!" "Loved Kas singing "Does Anybody Love You?" He was great!!" "The band was phenominal!!!!" "The voices were dead on by everyone...especially Todd. I was very surprised when Kasim sang "Does anybody love you" instead of Todd. But he did a great job while Todd was backstage taking a breath and changing again." "the highlight of the show for me was the only song that Todd didn't sing, Kasim's performance of my favorite song on AWATS..."Does Anybody Love You"?" "Kasim was on top of his game, his voice was clear as a bell and he played and performed like the consummate professional he is." "Tic Tic Tic - the entire band did an outstanding job and the sound was fine in the pit - they looked fantastic in those white tails." "The band was in white suits and kind of stayed put throughout the show. There was a right platform with Roger, Greg, and Bobby, and a left platform with Kaz, Jess, and PP. There was a big door in the middle through which Todd came and went constantly. The costumes were on Todd only and were more silly than serious..." "Very few, if any mis-cues other than Todd changing (or forgeting) the original solos. Also a couple of times you could hear his mic as he went offstage to quickly change wardrobe (that part was actually funny). Then there was a couple of wardrobe "Malfunctions" and just before Zen Archer...you could hear Todd call out "Major Malfuction" as he had to postpone the opening verse while the band improvised (which they did incredibly!)" "2500 people at $175 a pop is almost half a million dollars.....wow." "It was really sweet when Kas hopped up on that side of the stage to play part of a song with Roger." "As far as the rumored change in order of the songs, sunset blvd and the international feel reprise were put at the end right before the jov encore. Nice move....I REALLY liked that change a lot." "I will never get tired of "Just One Victory" that's when Michelle came out and sang back up by Kasim."
Other websites:
OHio.com has a review of this gig here.
There's a photo by Kevin Hug of Kasim Sulton at this gig here.
The venue (taken from the KasimInfo.com Blog that day):
Todd is currently booked to play seven AWATS gigs in US this month, plus two more in Europe next February with more possibly being added for that month later. The gigs will be a first set of Todd music followed by the second set after the interval consisting of the whole A Wizard, A True Star album in track order.
The address of this venue is 182 South Main Street, Akron, OH 44308 and this gig is reported to be sold out. They are also playing this venue tomorrow evening and tickets are still available for that performance.
This theater was built in 1929 and apparently is one of only five remaining theaters in the country where patrons experience a twinkling star-lit sky and intermittent clouds moving across the horizon while sitting inside the auditorium. In June 2001 the theater closed until November 2002 for a $19 million refurbishment. One unusual thing to note about this venue is that the lobby lights are flicked on and off to indicate when the next set is about to start.
 Many thanks to Whitney Burr for all the photos on this page 
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