Todd Rundgren, Micky Dolenz and others touring the White Album this summer

Glenn Tilbrook has a busy touring schedule playing his own music in good-size rooms and wouldn't need a hack gig like this.

 

If it comes near me I’ll consider going! I’ve seen Micky but not Todd, and throw in a Beatles tribute and it sounds great!

 

Nice! The 10/1 show is about 8 minutes from my house. Thanks for posting.

 

Oh good point! I didn't even think of his production work. If there isn't one already a "business deals of rock stars" thread would make fascinating reading. Lots of guys were exploited or elected to sign away rights to stuff. You'd think they would be set for life but they didn't own their publishing or like Elvis gave half of it away to the Colonel.

Of course, Todd may just enjoy keeping busy and doing different things. I saw him last year and he is still an incredible performer. Unlike a lot of legacy acts who take the same setlist out every summer, Todd seems to always have a creative card up his sleeve.

 

The Individualist tour he just did is about the first Todd tour (of his own music) in the Northeast that I have missed in the last 37 years. Was having band rehearsals of my own which others schedules prevented me from rescheduling on both of the nights he was in town, and I have a policy of always prioritizing making music over consuming it.

 

Todd and his wife Michele were victims of Countrywide in the "financial crisis" when a crooked banker switched their fixed rate mortgage to an adjustable one. They fought all the way to the Supreme Court, who refused to hear it, ruling that the deal that Congress cut rescuing the banks meant that he didn't have a case.

So he is stuck with an $18,000 a month mortgage. He sold his portion of Bat Out of Hell back to Meatloaf and Jim Steinman and even had to sell the Fool guitar.

Realistically, the only option he has is to keep touring, playing his own music or playing other people's music.

 

Rundgren and Dolenz also play their own music in good size rooms and don't need a "hack gig" like this either. Molland could use the boost, I've seen him play to some pretty empty places. Don't know what Christopher Cross does these days. But Glenn Tilbrook would be a great fit for this sort of thing, IMO. Why the hate??

 

A way better trend than those tired bands that continue on with one original member or less.
Think of how many older artists are out there, that might be perfect for something like this?
Of course, easier said than done. Hats off to Todd for recognizing this. It’s different from Ringo’s
All-star band, in that there is no Beatle involved to affect expectations.

 

Not hate. Just my honest take on a show like this and the suggestion that an artist like Glenn Tilbrook would play smaller rooms than usual in a tribute band.

 

This "tribute band" is playing rooms that are considerably larger than the ones I've seen Glenn play solo shows at, and similar size to the ones Squeeze currently plays.

 

I think the question is why Tilbrook would bother. He's doing just fine.

 

Dont think Micky can draw this well without another Monkee (particularly after all the Monkees touring on the last 5 years or so) and Mike seems pretty much done.

I expect Todd could do as well on his own, but this is probably a lot less work for him than leading his own band and organizing his own tour - which he still does quite often. More of a working paid vacation.

 

They're playing the Cabot Theatre in Beverly, MA -- where I saw Micky perform solo last summer, and it was close to full.

 

i'd go see susan partridge

 

Ok, my two Micky solo experiences (in PA and NJ) were both "no admission charged" events that drew at best 300 people.

 

It is totally Todd and Michele's business, but that sure is a lot of financial pressure to put yourself under at that age. And as stated in previous posts, although Todd makes decent money doing various projects, it is a fraction of the coin he was pulling in back in his 70's and 80's recording/production heyday. I know that if it was me, I would have to be taking stock of my affairs at this point and give some deep thought as to whether it is worth it to try to maintain that kind of lifestyle or whether it would be much less stressful to scale down and move somewhere back in the contiguous 48 states. Although again, it's their business and their decision to make.

 

If he has an "under water" mortgage then the only way to "get out" is to file for personal bankruptcy. I can see why playing music would be a more appealing alternative.

 

He bought his land on Kauai for 3.5 million dollars right after a hurricane had completely devastated it, so he bought some really prime land at a historically low price. He'd negotiated a 40 year fixed rate mortgage, and if I know Todd he had read every single line of it. And this sleaze ball swapped out the other pages because he'd make more with an adjustable rate the night before they signed.

Yeah, he spent a lot of money on various projects back in the day, like his video studio when he got that first $700,000 check for Bat Out of Hell. But I can't really blame him, he's always been more about doing what interested him than piling up stacks of cash.

And hey, at 70 he's unlikely to get a straight job anytime soon. He is incurably a musician and what else is a musician going to do than go out and play music he loves with people he likes?

 

I don't think he would ever look at that as an option.

 

Wow, that's surprising. I'm not sure how many seats are at the Cabot (couldn't find any info online), but I'm sure it's not more than maybe 800 people. But they're also playing the Berklee Performance Center in Boston a week later, and that's a 1200 seater, about 30 minutes from the Cabot gig.

I would think Todd could probably fill either of those venues on his own. This seems like something they're all doing not only for the cash (which, let's face it, they all probably need to some extent), but because it's a fun opportunity, and relatively easy work for the bigger names on the bill.

 

The same reason everybody else is - playing music they love with a bunch of other musicians and attracting attention for their own stuff.

One other thing is this will give them an opportunity to show off skills that don't get seen in their own work. For instance, Christopher Cross is a damn fine guitarist with chops the far exceed anything that his own musical compositions call for. I think he's going to be the real surprise of this tour to a lot of people.

@PhilipB posted a really great article about how the young Christopher Cross stepped in for Ritchie Blackmore at a Deep Purple gig:

That Time Christopher Cross Filled in for Ritchie Blackmore

I think we can take it as a given that he has got some serious chops if he can walk into a gig like that.

 

Wasn't too long ago that I saw a Glenn solo gig at the Paradise Lounge, a club with a capacity of 100 people.

Yes, he plays to larger crowds with Squeeze, but he has to share that money with Chris and the band. I could absolutely see Glenn agreeing to a tour like this during Squeeze's off time. He'd get his cut of the tour money, and would have to do far less of the heavy lifting.

 

Good points and I know from my time on this site that you are a wealth of knowledge on Todd-related matters. And Todd has always been about following his muse, so I understand his thinking and decisions for the most part.

 

I found the setlist where Christopher Cross filled in for Ritchie Blackmore:

1. Speed King
2. Hush (Joe South cover)
3. Into the Fire
4. Child in Time
5. Wring That Neck
6. Mandrake Root
7. Paint It Black (The Rolling Stones cover)
8. Drum Solo

Encore:
9. Black Night
10. Lucille

Deep Purple Setlist at The Jam Factory, San Antonio

From this article he said:

Playing electric guitar is not a thing that people know I do, really. I’m more known as a songwriter-singer. So that’s my time to kind of blow a little bit and have a little bit of fun with that, interacting with the players [onstage]. Not that many people know that I grew up playing guitar in Texas with Eric Johnson, Billy Gibbons, and Stevie Ray Vaughan, so it’s part of what I do.

It's like when you find out the Doctor Ruth trained as a scout & sniper with the Israeli military, or that Hedy Lamarr invented the technology that's the basis for cell phones.

 

Yet he toured US camp grounds with an acoustic guitar.

He is one of my favorite musicians, and to play with a Monkee, a Badfinger member and Todd R- musicians/singers he has referenced in the past as influences, yet alone the Beatles-he might do it if Squeeze wasn't touring. I didn't look up his status-just thought he'd be great in an all-star band covering Beatle songs.