Concerts

Revel with Rundgren in Beverly

The perpetually active and ever-relevant musician/producer returns to The Cabot on July 23.

2 minutes to read

By the end of July, Todd Rundgren’s 2022 Boston gigs will include opening for Daryl Hall at Orpheum Theatre, serving as the de facto headliner of “It Was 50 Years Ago Today: A Tribute to The Beatles’ Rubber Soul & Revolver” at Chevalier Theatre, and performing solo at his return visit to The Cabot.

Furthermore, Rundgren and guitarist Adrian Belew (David Bowie, Frank Zappa, Talking Heads, King Crimson, etc.) will front the band that will hit the road in October and November for the “Celebrating David Bowie” tour. No Boston date is currently scheduled, but there is room for one.

A recent Variety article by A.D. Amorosi described the singer/producer/multi-instrumentalist as “Hollywood’s needle-drop du jour” following “the multiple interpretations of his 1973 hit ‘Hello It’s Me’ as performed throughout the first season of HBO Max’s ‘And Just Like That…,’ [and] the use of ‘I Saw the Light’ in ‘Ozark’….”

So the question is less, “When will the 74-year-old ever stop working and/or being relevant?” and more, “Why should he do either when he has been doing both so successfully for five-and-a-half decades?”

I mean, this is a guy whose first band, Nazz, opened for The Doors in 1967.

“I remember Jim Morrison falling down on the stage and playing dead for half a song,” he told me when I interviewed him in 2017.

Moreover, I could pretty much blow my word limit by listing all of the artists for whom he has produced a record. Suffice it to say that you probably have at least one of them if you have a rock collection that you’re not ashamed to display. (For most people, it is probably Meat Loaf’s 1977 trillion-seller “Bat Out of Hell.”)

The same could be said of Rundgren’s run with the progressive ’70s band Utopia and his solo career, which includes masterpieces such as “Something/Anything?,” “A Wizard, a True Star,” and “Hermit of Mink Hollow,” the last of which – in combination with “Runt,” his debut – served as a killer punch line on an episode of “30 Rock.”

Finally, one need not be of a certain age to recognize Todd-sung songs like “I Saw the Light,” “Hello It’s Me,” “Couldn’t I Just Tell You?,” “Can We Still Be Friends?,” and “Bang the Drum All Day.”

Rundgren’s July 23 gig in Beverly will be part of his current “Unpredictable” tour, a trek that in the past has comprised a genuinely odd assortment of covers and lesser-known known originals, including ones from his bands.

[Note: The clip below is NSFW and not particularly pleasant. But it makes excellent use of “I Saw the Light.”]