1972: the first — and to be disastrously short-lived — tour of Todd Rundgren’s Utopia has stopped for a breather in Chicago. The band is cruising the Loop by foot, but the welcome they’re receiving from the locals is hardly what you’d expect for visiting rock & roll dignitaries. It could be their flash clothes, but more likely it’s the hair: Jean-Yves Labat is sporting a bright green lime ’do, Hunt Sales has had his sharply skunked, his brother Tony’s is day-glo pink, while Todd’s is every color they have a name for and then some.

Whatever the cause, the effect is a shitrain of indignation. Sailors whistle and old women threaten to have coronaries as they pass, cars screech to a halt in disbelief, and even hippies feel obligated to be rude. 1964 all over again, just a little more colorful this time around. “See the thing is,” says Todd as he dodges the insults, “that before long none of this will be so weird. Pretty soon kiddies will be pestering their parents ... ‘Aw, c’mon Mom, just a little purple on the side ... ’ ”