Todd Rundgren on mounting virtual tour

Connecting with his fans has never been a challenge for Todd Rundgren, who recently became a Rock & Roll Hall of Fame nominee for the third time in his storied career.

But connecting with fans for 25 concerts in 25 U.S. cities across four time zones, while performing all those concerts live from a single city with his nine-piece band, during a global pandemic? And gearing each of the 25 concerts to a different city, replete with backstage food catering featuring food specialties from a different city each night?

That presents a challenge – make that a lot of challenges – even for a veteran maverick like Rundgren, who has been equally acclaimed as a solo artist, band leader, producer and all-around rock and pop visionary.

“When I do a tour, it’s a big deal for me, everybody involved and, I hope, the audience,” said Rundgren, whose “Clearly Human Virtual Tour” doesn’t so much set the bar higher as create a new bar altogether.

The tour began Feb. 12 in “Buffalo” and concludes Monday in “Seattle.” The quotation marks are used to denote the fact that each of these virtual tour dates actually feature Rundgren and his band performing livestreamed concerts from the Chicago Theatre in Illinois.

The historic, 100-year-old venue has a capacity of 3,600. Because of COVID-19-related restrictions in Chicago, the actual in-person attendance is limited to 30 fans at each performance. That’s up from 19 when the virtual tour began a month ago.

Rundgren, who scored such Top 40 solo hits as “Can We Still Be Friends?” and “Hello It’s Me,” estimates he is investing about $1 million in the tour. He is producing it entirely himself and it is being livestreamed by NoCap. Ticket prices range from $35 for one show to $149 for a five-show bundle, with a variety of other options, including online meet-and-greets with Rundgren.

Each concert will be localized with photos and videos from the city the virtual performance is targeted to each night. For an extra $20 each, 150 fans per show can appear as a “virtual audience” on video panels set up in in front of the band – a move designed to foster real-time interaction. For staunch devotees, a handful of in-person tickets are available for each show, priced at $287.50 each, from clearlyhumantickets.com. Attendees will need to provide proof of a negative COVID-19 test taken no more than 72 hours before the concert they attend.

All of this represents a major gamble for Rundgren, who has produced landmark albums by Meat Loaf, Grand Funk Railroad, Patti Smith, Hall & Oates, XTC, New York Dolls, The Tubes and others. But creative gambles are nothing new for this seasoned risk-taker. He performed the first live interactive TV concert back in 1978, created the first graphics tablet for Apple in 1979 and launched the first online direct artist subscription service, “PatroNet,” in 1998.

‘No assurances’

“Well, I am a gambling person – I just don’t play in Las Vegas,” Rundgren said, speaking in a pre-virtual tour interview from his home in Kauai, Hawaii. “I’m doing these shows and hope they will succeed artistically, first of all. And, secondly, that they won’t break me and that, in the end, I won’t lose money.

“It’s often a crap-shoot, even in non-pandemic times, because touring is a business that operates on the margins. In other words, all your profit usually ends up coming from just a couple of key shows. You can play 30 shows on a tour and most of that income goes to paying the bills. Only a couple of the shows pay your profits. And if you have two shows that fall through, there goes all your profit. If three shows get canceled, you are in the red.”

He chuckled.

“One of the upsides of doing this virtual tour is that I won’t have any shows canceled, because I’ll be there for every show with my band in Chicago,” Rundgren continued.

“That was part of the basis for this virtual tour concept – the fact it’s getting more and more difficult to travel because of disruptions and other climate-related things, like almost the entire state California being on fire last summer or half of Texas being underwater.

Rundgren’s band largely features musicians who have worked with him for years. They include bassist Kasim Sulton, drummer Prairie Prince, guitarist Bruce McDaniel, saxophonist Bobby Strickland, trombonist Steven Stanley. Also on board is the three-piece Global Girls, which features Grace Yoo, Ashle Worrick and Rundgren’s wife, Michele.

The “Clearly Human Virtual Tour” takes its name from his 1989 album, “Nearly Human,” which took a deep dive into songs inspired by classic soul music and featured soaring vocals and meticulous arrangements.

“I had dabbled in R&B before, but with ‘Nearly Human,’ I did make a conscious decision that I wanted to take being an R&B singer more seriously. There were so many influences on my singing, most notably Stevie Wonder and The O’Jays’ Eddie Levert, and innumerable other great R&B singers. So, in a certain way, I bit the bullet by writing material a white guy could sing, without attempting to go out of my legitimate (life) experiences.

“I also had to build my vocal stamina. It’s not simply a matter of hitting the notes and having the stamina to get through a show, but of being able to abandon yourself to the material so that it doesn’t come out the same way every time you perform. That’s part of R&B. You don’t ever sing it exactly the same way each time, because – if you do – that’s when it starts to lose its meaning for you. You’re just doing the work, but not feeling it.”

A real bubble

A veteran of multiple world concert treks as a member of Ringo Starr’s All-Starr Band, Rundgren has clearly done the work for his virtual tour.

He hired a director and four camera operators. Everyone in his band and production crew are regularly tested for COVID-19 by an on-site staff nurse. They are all living in a real, not virtual, bubble.

“We’ve more or less taken over two Residence Inns, one for the band and another for the crew,” Rundgren, 72, noted.

“Essentially, everyone has an apartment with a full kitchen and a washer and dryer, so they can eliminate a lot of interactions and contact with other people. Everyone goes from their room to the van, to the venue, and then back again. …

“We don’t have any expectations, but maybe vaccines will become available to us at some time during our virtual tour and we’ll get vaccinated, which will set our minds at ease so we won’t have to be so paranoid. Until that happens, we have a stringent medical regimen in place.”

That regimen includes a provision to replace band members should any of them contract COVID-19 while in Chicago with Rundgren.