Todd Rundgren's Utopia - Utopia Theme (Live at the Chicago Theatre)

City in my head Utopia Heaven in my body Utopia It's time for me For me to go City in my head Utopia Heaven in my body Utopia Into the sky It rises now Todd Rundgren's Utopia is the debut album by the American rock band Utopia, released in October 1974 on Bearsville Records. The band was formed in 1973 by musician, songwriter, and producer Todd Rundgren who decided to expand his musical style by moving from pop-oriented rock towards progressive rock. He assembled a six-piece group that featured three keyboardists and toured as a live act. Most of the album was recorded in the studio except "Utopia", the opening track, which was recorded live in concert in 1974. The album peaked at number 34 on the Billboard 200 and critical reaction towards it was mixed. "Utopia" was recorded live in concert at the Fox Theatre in Atlanta, Georgia on April 25, 1974. On his 1973 album A Wizard, a True Star, Rundgren had sung the line "Wait another year, Utopia is here." The debut album contained only four tracks and ran for almost sixty minutes total, opening with "Utopia Theme" — recorded live in concert — and closing with the extended concept piece "The Ikon", which ran more than thirty minutes and took up all of side two of the album. Soon after this first album was completed, Labat left the band.[2] The remaining five-piece lineup was referred to by Rundgren as the "Rhythm Kings" and recorded the song "Real Man", later released on Rundgren's 1975 album Initiation, along with other Rundgren solo material. Former Moog programmer Roger Powell joined the band on synthesizer, restoring it to a sextet. Ellman left the band to become an executive at his family's Beefsteak Charlie's restaurant. He was replaced by John "Willie" Wilcox, who had been the drummer with Hall & Oates on the Rundgren-produced War Babies album. By mid-1976, the group became known simply as 'Utopia' and settled into a four-person lineup of Rundgren (guitar, vocals), Kasim Sulton (bass, vocals), Roger Powell (keyboards, vocals) and Willie Wilcox (drums, vocals). This line-up remained stable until the group's demise. All four band members wrote, sang, produced and even engineered material for the band. Utopia had only one Billboard top 40 hit: "Set Me Free", from their best-selling album Adventures in Utopia (1979), peaking at No. 27 in the US in early 1980. The same year, the band issued the LP Deface the Music, which was an overt pastiche of the Merseybeat and Sgt. Pepper-era music of The Beatles. Though the album received some positive critical notices, the move away from new wave derailed the band's career momentum. In August 1979, Utopia played at Knebworth Festival in England - billed as Todd Rundgren and Utopia. The headline act at both their appearances at the festival, over two consecutive Saturdays on 4 and 11 August, were Led Zeppelin. Utopia managed to hold on to their cult status throughout the '80s with their albums, concert performances and videos that were shown on MTV in its early years. The band's final two albums Oblivion (1984) and POV (1985) were neither commercially successful nor critically well-received, partly because the Passport label on which they were issued folded. After issuing the compilation Trivia in 1986, which included tracks from their previous three LPs plus two previously released outtakes, Utopia called it quits. Though Utopia officially broke up in 1986, they reunited briefly in 1992, yielding the album Redux '92: Live in Japan, but they were unable to secure a new label arrangement so they disbanded permanently. On January 29–30, 2011, a reunion of most of the members of the 1974 Utopia Mark II band (Rundgren, Moogy Klingman, Ralph Schuckett, John Siegler, and Kevin Ellman) was held for two nights at the Highline Ballroom in New York City. Proceeds from the shows went to defray medical treatment for Klingman's bout with cancer. Material was drawn from the 1972–75 catalogs of Rundgren and Todd Rundgren's Utopia. This marked the first time this lineup performed together in over 35 years. Ten months later, in November 2011, the band toured live as "Todd Rundgren's Utopia" for the first time since 1975, with the same lineup of Rundgren, Klingman, Schuckett, Siegler, Ellman, Gress and Sulton. Klingman died on November 15, 2011. In February 2018, Utopia announced it would be touring as "Todd Rundgren's Utopia" starting that spring, with a lineup of Rundgren, Sulton, Wilcox, and Schuckett. In March 2018, the band announced that Schuckett would not be able to participate, and called for keyboardists who are familiar with Utopia's catalog to submit audition tapes. The band ultimately chose Gil Assayas after one of Rundgren's sons saw him perform. In May 2018, the band performed at the Chicago Theater, which was recorded and released in April 2019 as a four-disc collection on both DVD & Blu-ray video format and two audio CDs, featuring the new line-up with Assayas on keyboards.

Added 28 Aug 2026