Iconic guitarist, songwriter and producer Todd Rundgren has announced a virtual tour next year and revealed a Christmas single called Flappie – an English translation of the 1978 original by Dutch comedian Youp van 't Hek and Jan Kokken.
Rundgren will start his Clearly Human Virtual Tour of the US on 14 February and it runs for 25 dates until 22 March 22 and coincides with the re-release of his 1989 Nearly Human by Warner/Rhino on CD in March, followed by a coloured vinyl release the following month. Rundgren will perform the album in its entirety along with selections from his career.
His 10-piece band for the tour will include Kasim Sultan (bass), Prairie Prince (drums) and Bobby Strickland (sax).
"As a touring musician, I realised that it’s going to become more and more common that I can’t get to the gig"
Anyone outside of the US can buy a ticket to any of the shows and it aims to be the most "technically advanced" virtual tour to date. All the gigs will be performed from a venue in Chicago but will be streamed live and geo-targeted to specific US cities.
“It’s an idea that I’ve been cultivating for a long time,” Rundgren told Rolling Stone about the tour concept. “The inspiration for it was the degradation of the travel network, and a lot of that was a result of climate change. As a touring musician, I realised that it’s going to become more and more common that I can’t get to the gig, that my flights have all been cancelled, or there’s a flood or a fire and you can’t even drive there. So I started toying with the idea of different ways to deliver my service.”
If fans are in the USA and you are not based in the city where the gig is streamed to, you can buy a multiple ticket that will allow you to stream multiple shows.
There are also special tickets available for 19 people to be filmed for each show and put on screens at the show.
Todd has joined forces with NoCap for the tour and you can buy tickets and find out more about how it will work over at nocapshows.com
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