Todd Rundgren Arena Tour

Starring Kasim Sulton

Thursday 20th November 2008

Le Trabendo
Paris, France

Love In Action
Walls Came Down
Black Maria
Open My eyes
Lunatic Fringe
I Saw The Light
Mad
Afraid
Mercenary
Gun
Courage
Weakness
Strike
Pissin
Today
Bardo
Mountaintop
Panic
Manup

Couldn't I just Tell You
Just One Victory

Kasim Sulton and Todd Rundgren at Le Trabendo, Paris, France, 11/20/08

Review by SueW:

It was another picturesque drive for me, back through The Alps which took about 10 hours (especially as I stopped a few times to take some photos!).

I struggled to find the venue. I found the park where the venue was and then parked in a coach area so I moved the car and set off on foot. It then took me about 45 minutes with a map and asking loads of people (some sent me in totally different directions!) before eventually I found it. I found Le Zenith first (which was the first venue where I saw Kasim outside of England in 1994!). Le Trabendo was a smaller hall near it but I was sent all around the park until I got there!

It was a nice enough venue with a small stage, a dance-floor type area in front of it and then raised areas where people could stand or sit to watch. My main complaint about the venue was that they had mixed-sex loos!

The gig was advertised as starting at 8.00pm. In both Bonn and Milan the start time was about the time that Todd's set started but unfortunately in Paris that was the time that the doors opened. I say unfortunately because I needed to be in Calais (2.5 hours away) by 2.00am for my ferry!

Eugene Francis Jr came on at about 8.30pm and played his usual set (except he dropped the Keane and Snow Patrol references from the last song). He didn't seem to connect as well with the audience tonight (Todd didn't have any language problems later). One funny thing was when he was giving out his badges and asked how to say the word in French - he was told that it's badge too! Apparently Eugene is Welsh and made a derogatory comment about the English so his gig in Norwich will be interesting!

Todd's set started at about 10.00pm and lasted just less than 2 hours. There were probably 400-500 people there tonight which was a great improvement on both Bonn and Milan so it was a good atmosphere.

Unfortunately the lighting wasn't great tonight. They had the lights there but for some reason the lighting guy didn't light them very well so it wasn't easy to take good photos (at least with my camera).

The sound was good in the venue (at least where I was standing) and wasn't too loud even though I was by some speakers. However it was very hot in there and I used the sound of one of the drums as a breeze whenever it was hit!

Kasim seems to be getting more confident on the keyboards. He certainly wears his glasses more now and looks down at the keyboards less too. Tonight Jesse Gress didn't wear his glasses for most of the set.

I thought Todd's voice sounded good tonight. I can't help but compare it to Meat Loaf's and despite all he puts his voice through each night, he doesn't show any sign of strain at all.

It's also interesting comparing the staging of both gigs. Meat Loaf goes in for elaborate staging with the girls (and him) changing costumes several times and a massive lighting show but Todd is just a band playing music. They sometimes will do things like Todd and Rachel play back to back or Todd will go round to each of the band members but basically they just rely on the music as the songs are strong enough to stand up on their own.

Strike was really popular tonight with most people joining in and Mountaintop went down a storm.

Kasim seemed to be enjoying himself on stage tonight - he made a lot of eye contact with the crowd and received the biggest cheer when Todd introduced the band! There were also people calling his name when he first came out on stage.

(I managed to make my ferry by the skin of my teeth so I had a whole 90 minutes in bed before having to get up at 6.00am for work!)

Kasim Sulton and Todd Rundgren at Le Trabendo, Paris, France, 11/20/08

Other websites:
TRConnection has reviews and photos of this gig here.

Kasim Sulton and Todd Rundgren at Le Trabendo, Paris, France, 11/20/08

Todd Rundgren 2008 Arena Tour

Copyright © 2008 KasimInfo.com
All Rights Reserved