One of the fanbase-dividing works, “Arena” was an album which found Todd Rundgren trying to match the titular scope of songs with their rather intimate setting – recording the thirteen pieces that formed the offering on a laptop and playing all the instruments himself. The American musician has never lacked ambition, yet even for Rundgren taking eleven fresh numbers to the stage and bookending those with a few Todd classics seemed a bit extreme, concert audiences feeling as if he was forcing a lot of unfamiliar material on them. Almost two decades down the line, though, when most of those cuts have been largely forgotten by non-connoisseurs, a document of the veteran’s 2008 tour should make for an interesting listening.
