Todd Rundgren: Damned If I Do Tour

Todd Rundgren plays The Sound on Tuesday, October 27, as part of his Damned If I Do tour. He's adding these 2026 dates to a run that was already on the books, and he's promising plenty of fan favorites along the way.

If you're not familiar with him, Rundgren is a singer-songwriter and producer who's spent decades moving between power pop and progressive rock. He got his start in the 1960s with the psychedelic Philadelphia band Nazz, and his solo breakthrough brought hits like "I Saw the Light" and "Hello It's Me," the latter a reworked Nazz tune. His 1972 double album Something/Anything? is widely seen as his magnum opus: he played every instrument, sang all the vocals, and produced the record himself, blending power pop with rock n' roll. In the mid-1970s he formed the experimental band Utopia, which focused on eccentric progressive epics.

He's just as well known for what he did behind the glass. As a producer, he shaped iconic albums like Meat Loaf's Bat Out of Hell, The Band's Stage Fright, Badfinger's Straight Up, and the New York Dolls' self-titled debut, and later worked with XTC and The Psychedelic Furs. He also wrote the novelty tune "Bang the Drum All Day," and fans often talk about him as an electronic music revolutionary. On stage in San Diego, he'll be joined by Gil Assayas on keys, Bruce McDaniel on guitar, Prairie Prince on drums, Bobby Strickland on horns, and Kasim Sulton on bass.

The show is at The Sound, located at the Del Mar Fairgrounds, 2260 Jimmy Durante Blvd, Del Mar, CA 92014. Doors open at 7 PM and the music starts at 8 PM. Tickets are $90 for reserved seating, $105 for premium reserved, and $120 for gold circle reserved.