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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 
Review by MikeB:
Starting with the pre-show fan party at a local brewery and ending with the band’s final bows at the end of the concert there were plenty of happy smiling faces in Stamford.
This presentation of Todd Rundgren’s seminal album A Wizard A True Star, the 3rd of 6 scheduled domestic shows over 8 days, and the last promoted by the fans who run Rundgren Radio, was held at Stamford’s Palace Theater. Although not a sell-out, the floor seating was mostly filled and the balcony’s first few rows were filled as well.
Unlike most concerts these days, the audience was milling around and talking with friends and other fans up until the lights went down – more like a big party then a concert. The same happened during the show’s intermission as people met up with fellow Todd fans.
There had been hints about the opening “act” for this show but no one who hadn’t been in Akron for the first two AWATS shows a few days before was prepared for a virtual Utopia reunion with Todd leading the band – Kasim Sulton on bass, Roger Powell on keyboards and Prairie Prince (substituting for Utopia’s Willie Wilcox) on drums – through a set filled with songs that hadn’t been performed since the short-lived Utopia redux in the 90s.
From the opening bars of The Road to Utopia the audience was on their feet and stayed that way for the whole set as classic Utopia songs such as Caravan, Libertine, Hammer in My Heart and more showed why Utopia (and Todd) developed such a cult following. There were a few minor glitches in the set (and one "start over"), but considering the complexity of the music and the short time available for rehearsals these problems were not a problem for the enthusiastic crowd.
During the short intermission the stage crew dismantled the small band set-up in front of the stage curtain and went the lights went down again the familiar opening sounds from the AWATS album signaled to the audience to take their places for the feature event.
The curtain lifted to reveal the full band on two risers – one for Powell, Greg Hawkes (keyboards) and Bobby Strickland (keyboards, percussion, and wind instruments); one for Sulton, Prince and Jesse Gress (guitar) – and as the first AWATS song, International Feel started Todd cam out in a full white spacesuit (sans faceplate on the round helmet). This was the first of about 8 costumes Todd wore during the set, and he pranced, danced and emoted throughout the set – theatrics not seen on a Rundgren stage in many many years.
The white-tie-and-tails dressed band seemed more than capable of handling the musical intricacies of Rundgren’s studio masterpiece, including some extended versions of songs as Todd changed costumes backstage. Todd never missed a cue during the costume changes, returning to the stage just in time to start or end the song.
We had the ‘peacock’ look, the ‘pretty bird’, the glam rock silver, all looks bringing back of the 70’s Todd at some point.
There were way too many highlites to this set to list all of them, but the long version of Zen Archer, with Bobby Strickland coming down from the riser to perform an extended saxophone lead was one of them. Kasim Sulton took the center stage for one song, Does Anybody Love You, before Todd came back out.
Even at 61+ years old Todd still puts all of his emotions into his songs, making songs like I Don’t Want To Tie You Down and Sometimes I Don’t Know What to Feel and the I’m So Proud Motown medley into eye-watering masterpieces.
The band came back to the stage for one encore, the album-ending Just One Victory which was only marred by the fact that Todd could not get the guitar strap over his costume’s shoulder in time to play the full ending lead guitar work.
The band took bows and left the stage but the audience cheered for more, only subsiding when Gloria Gaynor's "I Will Survive" came over the PA (yes, that song was Todd’s choice!)
A night to remember – a true night of smiles!
Comments by fans posted to various messageboards and mailing lists include:
"Absolute thrill to see Nutopia -- felt like a raucous, intimate view into a garage band show, even a rehearsal, but in a good sense. It was sloppy but fun and Roger and Todd were particularly on. Mix was poor -- Kasim was hardly discernable at times; and a particularly unfortunate extended moment with the guitar tech asleep at the switch during Trapped after TR's string snapped. He was not happy -- "too late now" he snapped fully two minutes after the moment passed."
"What fun to see the guys playing together! Very rough, clearly under-rehearsed. Roger, Todd & Kas were pretty tight, but Prairie was the newcomer and it showed. He didn't quite capture the right groove on many of the songs. (And I love Prairie as a drummer, it's nothing personal. Just needed more time to rehearse.) It was great to see them playing together, though. One thing this short set really highlighted was what a great BAND Utopia was-- it wasn't just Todd & 3 backing guys, it was a real band with each member carrying their own weight."
"Kasim sounded great as always, and what a treat to see Roger singing "Carava" and "Abandon City" again! The vocals were lost in the mix, and Todd's guitar solos were buried, I could hardly hear them. But the performance was good even though it felt thrown-together, and I bet if they really stepped up & did a Utopia reunion tour, it would be fantastic!"
"I loved the show, but I think that Todd was really steaming on the amount of glitches that occurred, accidental or not. I hope he was also recording another show for the dvd release (high-def) or there will have to be some tricky editing from this show. It was kind of a shame, but things can happen in a live show, which is the point."
"Another particular highlight was hearing Kasim take over the vocals for the 90 second piece of pop perfection, "Does Anybody Love You." Kasim Sulton's presence has always kept Todd on solid ground and his vocals are as powerful as they were when he made his debut in Utopia as an 18 year old in 1976."
"AWESOME, although there were a few glitches ( it is live ) I thought it was another awesome performance by ( both bands LOL ) Todd and the guys in the band . Utopia reminded me of when I saw them at the palace in Waterbury Ct ( stamford was the 3rd Palace I saw Todd at ). "
"Glitches or not, I think this is what we will see on the DVD release. You could tell from some of the looks exchanged in the first set that they had not rehearsed the Utopia stuff as much as AWATS. Many of the AWATS songs WERE extended for Todd's costume changes - and Bobby S's long ending solo for Zen Archer was incredible!"
"Kasim played Kasim in a way only Kasim could play Kasim."
"And what about that Kasim on "Does Anybody Love You"? Fantastic!"
Other websites:
Burning Wood has a review and photos (including Kasim) of this gig here.
J Bloomrosen is producing a book of photos for each AWATS gig. Click here to view (and order) the one for the second gig. It has photos from this gig and the first 15 pages can be previewed. Below is a photo from the book of the Stamford gig: 
Kasim Sulton receives a couple of mentions in a review of the Todd Rundgren gig in Stamford, CT in The Middletown Press online here.
The venue (taken from the KasimInfo.com Blog that day):
Tickets for the gig tonight vary between $60 and $125 (plus charges) from this link. A few days ago two seats together were available in the sixth row of the venue. The address of the venue is 61 Atlantic Street, Stamford, CT 06901 and I believe that this is the first time that Kasim Sulton has played at this venue in recent years.
Many thanks to MikeB for all the photos on this page. 
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