OUT INTO THE damp chill of a February night we came, the scattered legions of Toddheads – crossing fingers for transcendence, willing to settle for a brief nostalgic glow.

It is nearly 35 years since your correspondent came as a not-so-sweet 16-year-old to the (former) Hammersmith Odeon to let Todd Rundgren's Utopia take him on a glam-prog psychedelic soul Big Dipper trip that confirmed TR as his American cult hero of choice. And now here he is with the long-lost brothers he's never met, the outcast nerdballs who glommed on to Todd as their pop messiah, come to see the man – backed by some of the same henchmen who were there in Oct '75 – play his greatest-ever work, the dazzling and dizzying 'A Wizard, A True Star', a title that sounds like a truncated Tyrannosaurus Rex album but that speaks the literal truth about Rundgren's criminally overlooked genius.

For make no mistake: if the Todd Rundgren of 'Runt' through to... (well, name your cutoff point: mine is the magnificent 'Nearly Human')... wasn't a genius, then there's never been a genius in rock and roll. Todd could and should have been as true a star of the '70s as Bowie or Zeppelin or Neil or the Eagles or Fleetwood Mac. He should unquestionably have been as big a star as dickweed stadium impostors like Peter Frampton. But for all kindsa reasons he wasn't, not least because he didn't want to be.

It wasn't that Todd lacked the ego drive or flashy showmanship to assert his right to the throne; but ultimately he was too smart and playfully Zappa-esque – and soulful and honourable – to fall for the idiocy of megafame. He preferred instead to squander what windfalls dropped his way ('Bat Out of Hell' et al) on white-elephant ventures like the Utopia video studio in his adopted Woodstock.

It's obvious that all of us gathered at the HMV Apollo are feeling a blend of high excitement and deep trepidation. We all know this could be a massacre of the greatest freeform conceptual long-player ever made (yes, greater than even 'Pet Sounds' and 'Sgt. Pepper' and all other such canonical works), given the maestro's twenty-year tendency to ignore utterly the hopes and dreams of those who love his music, and instead hatch harebrained schemes like 2008's appalling 'Arena' album.

By the sounds of it I made the right decision in swerving the night's support act: a harebrained scheme involving Todd playing noisy versions of Robert Johnson songs (for if there's anyone less 'blooooozy' on Planet Earth than Todd, please point him or her my way; but therein I suppose lies the amusement). Instead I slipped away with fellow Toddhead Danny Baker – let out for what he claimed was his first gig in a decade (it turned out to be an arrant falsehood when he sheepishly confessed that within that timespan he'd see the Rev. Al Green at the self-same venue) – and, with his delightful son Sonny (oft-namechecked on his pater's peerlessly freewheeling afternoon show on BBC London), talked as all Toddheads must of the man's whimsies, follies, and triumphs.

By the time DB and I flowed into the Apollo foyer, it was obvious we were among fellow saddos, blokes somewhere on the spectrum between middle age and senility, unable to give up on the Rundgren dream of Utopia and musical bliss, eyes rolled heavenwards, air guitars at the ready, psyched for the exalting choruses of 'Sunset Boulevard' and 'Just One Victory'. Refreshingly there were one or two less lined faces too, vaguely hip youths possibly turned on to Todd by namecheckers like the estimable Hot Chip.

And then it started, just as we'd heard it in our minds: the curtain slowly rising to the scary synth throb-pulse that ushers in 'International Feel' – "Here we are again, the start of the end..." – dry ice clearing to show a band in white-tie and tails, TR veterans Shuckett (Ralph), Sulton (Kasim), Gress (Jesse) and Prince (Prairie) and more, perched on risers, three behind proggy banks of keyboards, just like in Oct '75. Plus, lurching like a NASA Frankenstein from a centre-stage tunnel, a figure in a bulky spacesuit, the face of Todd Rundgren visible behind the visor of its helmet.

I hadn't Googled details of the 'Wizard' shows Todd had played in the States, so had no idea the Neil Armstrong turn was just the first of countless costume changes accompanying the album's seamless flow of songs and instrumental link-pieces. At first I thought, "Oh God please don't... surely Todd's made enough of an ass of himself for one lifetime." Slowly, though, I began to see the magnificence of the man's willingness to forfeit all dignity, put his 61-year-old body on the line, and do so much more with 'Wizard' than reheat it for balding boomers.

Some of the getups were grotesque – and absurd, and cheap-looking, and everything you'd expect of Todd – but some were wildly inspired. When he wobbled out of the tunnel in a huge inflated fatboy outfit, clutching a loveheart lollipop for 'Just Another Onionhead', it was great theatre. For 'You Don't Have to Camp Around' he flounced around as Oscar Wilde. On 'Zen Archer' he referenced the infamous Nicky Nichols "glam peacock" outfit sported on a 1973 TV special. The spandex body suits worn for 'Rock and Roll Pussy' and 'Is It My Name' – like the psychedelicised Gibson SG brought out of storage for the trip – instantly transported me back to the lean and lithe Todd of Utopia '75.

The music was by turns hilarious, explosive, heartbreakingly beautiful. All Toddheads know the guy is or was a melodist of the order of Burt and Brian and Macca, while also being a riffmeister to rival Jimi and Pagey and Pete Townshend. The Impressions/Miracles/Delfonics soul suite, sung superbly in a tangerine suit, brought tears to many eyes and threw Todd's clear influence on Prince into stark relief. Other slow spots – 'Does Anybody Love You?', 'I Don't Want to Tie You Down' – were equally delectable. The supercharged frenzy of 'Is It My Name?' trounced all other headbangers laid down in the name of Heavy Metal (even Todd's own 'Heavy Metal Kids'). 'Sometimes I Don't Know What To Feel', repositioned in the sequence where he originally wanted it, sounded as desperately questing as it did in 1973. Last track and regular Rundgren encore 'Just One Victory' made every last man and woman sign up once more for the TR vision of Utopia. "Underneath it all we are here together, shining still..."

What we know is this: 'A Wizard, A True Star' was an acid-assisted act of self-sabotage, derailing the Top 40 promise of the pop 'n' soul prodigy of 'We Gotta Get You a Woman', 'Hello, It's Me' and 'I Saw the Light' – the one-man-band boy wonder steeped as deeply in Laura Nyro and Carole King as he was in The Who and The Beach Boys. Though Rundgren went on to make 1974's equally godlike 'Todd' – rediscover it now!! – his career never recovered and 'Wizard' never sold worth a damn anyway.

Tonight maybe – hearing the deafening roars that followed 'Sunset Boulevard' and then 'Just One Victory' – our True Star felt properly vindicated for the first time, at least on these shores. Maybe, too, he'll cut his losses, come back next year, and play the genius songs from 'The Ballad of Todd Rundgren, Something/Anything?, Todd, Faithful, Hermit of Mink Hollow etc. that all Toddheads would KILL to hear live just one more time.

REF: rockspages.com