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| Daryl Hall & Todd Rundgren @ the Golden Gate Theater (Photo: Kevin Keating) |
This past Saturday night I was able to visit Daryl's House when the Rock n Roll Hall of Famer Daryl Hall brought his 6-piece 'house' band to the Golden Gate Theater. Opening the show was another Rock Hall Legend, Todd Rundgren, and it felt like I was back in my old hometown of Philadelphia where these legends both originated. All that was missing was the cheesesteaks!
What can I write that hasn't already been written about these two legends? Daryl & Todd have made their mark on pop music and continue to produce music to this day. Rundgren's latest, Space Force, is expected at some point this year, and Daryl's latest, Before After, is essentially a greatest hits album augmented with tracks taken from his syndicated TV show, Live from Daryl's House.
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| Todd Rundgren & Daryl Hall @ the Golden Gate Theater (Photo: Kevin Keating) |
For each of these guys, Saturday night in San Francisco was a walk down memory lane through their respective extensive catalogs. Todd was backed by Daryl's House band which featured Shane Theriot (guitar), Eliot Lewis (keyboards), Klyde Jones (bass guitar), Brian Dunne (drums), Porter Carroll (percussion), and Charles DeChant (sax). Todd's set lasted about an hour after a 7:35pm start time and had about 20-minute intermission before Daryl's House band returned to the stage, but this time with Daryl taking center stage. The full setlist for both Todd and Daryl are below and as you can see, they each played their hits -- in Daryl's case, some of his solo hits along with classic Hall & Oates tracks.
The highlights of the show were probably when Todd came back to perform the first three songs in Daryl's four-song encore -- "Wait for Me" from Hall & Oates, then one of Todd's classics, "Can We Still Be Friends" and then finally a song from the renowned Philly producers Leon Huff and Kenny Gamble "Expressway to your Heart" which was originally recorded by The Soul Survivors. Todd & Daryl both joked how that was really the Soul Survivors only song.
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| Todd Rundgren @ the Golden Gate Theater (Photo: Kevin Keating) |
Earlier in the night, Todd asked long-time fans in the audience if they were wondering where his favorite guitar was? He cracked how there were rumors of it going back into rehab or heading to Ukraine to fight in the war. He called his new guitar 'Pearly' with its off-white pearl color and said he couldn't call the guitar 'whitey' because then it would most likely be Marjorie Taylor Greene's.
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| Daryl Hall @ the Golden Gate Theater (Photo: Kevin Keating) |
In terms of Daryl's set, he sang and played guitar at center stage up until "Sacred Songs" where he then moved to stage right to play the grand piano through "Sara Smile". When he transitioned to the Roland keyboard for "I Can't Go for That" a crowd of women flooded the standing room only pit which up to that point had been empty. Daryl thanked the crowd for coming down and mentioned how he'd initially worried about the empty space and how the first row of seats were so far back... probably about 15 feet from the front of the stage.
This was just a fun show and the only minor annoyance was the periodic microphone feedback that the FOH sound engineer just couldn't get a handle on throughout the night -- luckily it was sporadic, but noticeable.
There's only four dates left on the tour, so if you're reading this outside the Bay Area, be sure to check the Daryl Hall site for the remaining dates. Thanks for reading and be sure to follow us across our social channels here: Instagram | Facebook | Twitter.
