Todd Rundgren: Liars Live Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		4.0
Video		2.5
Audio		2.5
Extras		2.0
Overall		3.0

Todd Rundgren: Liars Live Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman July 4, 2024

There are very few people in contemporary rock and/or pop circles that I personally think really deserve to be called "visionary", even if that term does get bandied about with abandon, but among that august group I'd argue that Todd Rundgren is pretty much a shoo in. Arguably outpacing even another unquestioned visionary, Stevie Wonder, in terms of playing most if not all instruments on many of his albums, as well as often handling producing duties, Rundgren has also been (sorry, pun unavoidable) instrumental in developing everything from music videos to integrating sequenced material into live performances to utilizing the internet to distribute his music. I keep hoping (maybe even praying) that Rhino will start exploring Rundgren's Bearsville stuff at least (which was distributed by Warner Brothers) for some of their hi-res audio releases, but as of the writing of this review, sadly (for reasons I'll soon discuss) only some live performances by Todd have been released, all (and here's the sad part) released by Cleopatra, a label which kind of bizarrely by this point in this format's history continues to pump out Blu-rays with MPEG-2 video encodes and lossy audio options.

First, the good news: the music is unbelievably energetic, often very soulful and always graced with Todd's typically inerrant use of extended chord voicings (the concert is an object lesson in both major 7th and minor 9th chord structures in particular) and gorgeous melodies. The bad news is that Todd's use of black light and the like for a patently hallucinogenic visual ambience doesn't translate particularly well here, and even more peculiarly, the audio mixes are inadequate in terms of offering a clear presentation of Todd's often biting lyrics (more about both of these aspects in the video and audio sections below). The stage show is patently odd (you expected anything less from Todd?), with his backup band in little isolated "cages" (with some admittedly cool custom built gimbals that allow the keyboard guys to rotate the keys out of the way when the move on to guitars), and Todd frequently underneath a virtual metal chuppah that bathes him in various bizarre tones. While the concert is billed as 'Liars' Live on the front cover, the back cover and main menu state that "The Liars" is the name of the back up band, and so the concert doesn't follow the album's track list per se or even in totality, and also includes some other Todd chestnuts.

The track list is:

1. Prelude
2. Truth
3. Buffalo Grass
4. Mammon
5. Fascist Christ
6. I Hate My Frickin' I.S.P.
7. While My Guitar Gently Weeps
8. God Said
9. Liar
10. Soul Brother
11. Flaw
12. Sweet
13. Past
14. Love Science
15. Born the Synthesize
16. Feel It
17. The Want of a Nail
18. Hello It's Me
19. Just One Victory

Todd Rundgren: Liars Live Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Todd Rundgren: Liars Live is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Cleopatra Entertainment with an MPEG-2 encoded 1080i transfer in 1.32:1. Due to some prevalent anomalies on display throughout this presentation, I'm assuming this is upscaled, though I don't have any authoritative information in that regard. As can pretty easily be seen in many of the screenshots I've uploaded to accompany this review, the gonzo lighting arrays lead to near constant posterizing, or something close to it, especially in some of the blue and purple swathed material (I almost thought jokingly maybe Todd was a charter member of Blue Man Group throughout this piece). Detail levels are almost extinguished at times due to the lighting, but even in relatively "normal" moments (which are few and far between), fine detail can be variable. Combing artifacts attend typical bugaboos like fast moving drumsticks. There are also some other seemingly inherent video issues, including some crosshatching and noise that can be pretty easily spotted. As upscales go (if indeed this is what this is), this is actually not bad, but if this is "real" high def, it has some issues.

Todd Rundgren: Liars Live Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Todd Rundgren: Liars Live features Dolby Digital 5.1 and Dolby Digital 2.0 options. Todd is listed as having "produced, edited and mixed" this effort, but I wonder if that includes this Blu-ray iteration, because the prioritization of vocals in both tracks I found to be distressingly inadequate. The stereo mix sounds like Todd is in another venue entirely, "phoning" in his vocals that sound peculiarly distant. That problem is thankfully not present in the surround mix, but instead there's an overwhelming emphasis on the instrumentation's midrange and low end that completely buries Todd's beautiful voice regularly. There are some great arrangements on tap here, including a cool retro 12/8 version of "Hello It's Me".

Todd Rundgren: Liars Live Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Tour Scrapbook (HD; 4:44) has some fun schematics of the set apparatuses, along with stills.


• Japan Video Diary (HD; 14:14)


• Credits (HD; 1:21) kind of weirdly features the concert's closing credits roll separately from the performance.

Todd Rundgren: Liars Live Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Help us, Rhino, you're our only hope.

While I'll make it abundantly clear that I love her dearly (especially if she's reading this), my wife is not the most musically astute of people, something that she'd admit herself (at least if I weren't in the room). That said, one night she left me absolutely gobsmacked when we were in a restaurant and "You Get What You Give" by New Radicals started playing, and I mentioned that it was the original version of a song we had been discussing vis a vis the Felix Cartal remix that had shown up on our car radio a few days previously. My wife listened for a while and said, "So, is this Todd Rundgren?" Of course my initial response was in the mansplaining category, but after a second I realized, hey, this version does sound like Todd! (That tune is full of Todd-esque major 9ths, as theory geeks may already know.) That may be just one subliminal piece of evidence as to how much impact Todd has had on contemporary music through the years (I'd also point to guys like Adam Young and Owl City, who followed Todd's "bedroom musician" template). This disc offers an outstanding concert with lackluster technical merits.