Tonight's Todd Rundgren concert was supposed to be the grand unveiling of the new Capitol Theatre in downtown Clearwater,  Ruth Eckerd Hall and the city of Clearwater joined forces to renovate the old Royalty Theatre and turn it into an intimate, 451-seat concert venue — but the overhaul is not sufficiently completed to host a show.

As a result, Rundgren and his four-piece backing band — guitarist Jesse Gress, drummer Prairie Prince, bassist Rachel Haden and keyboardist Kasim Sulton — will perform on a stage set up directly in front of the theater. The reserved-seating configuration will be adpated for outdoors, essentially set up right on Cleveland Street.

Rundgren is touring to support his latest album, Arena, his first patently rock record in many a year, and a pretty heavy one at that.

Tickets are $49.75.

This article appears in Mar 25-31, 2009.

Eric Snider is the dean of Bay area music critics. He started in the early 1980s as one of the founding members of Music magazine, a free bi-monthly. He was the pop music critic for the then-St. Petersburg...