If you're about my age, late 20's/early 30's, Toad the Wet Sprocket is one of those bands that is inextricably linked to your high school or college years. You probably know the band's name - the best one to spring from a Monty Python sketch - but although you may not be able to name any of their songs, chances are you'd be able to sing along with one if it came on the radio (which it does every so often - "All I Want", or "Something's Always Wrong", or "Walk On The Ocean").
When they broke up at the end of 1997 - after playing the entire summer on the HORDE Festival, no less - they just became one more band that, despite my penchant for live music, I'd never gotten to see in person. Of course, when bands break up, the members don't just stop making music; they go off on their own projects, and so it was that I found myself headed to the Middle East (the venue, not the region of the world...that would be weird) to catch Glen Phillips, their lead singer.
The Middle East is a funky venue that actually has three spaces inside it, imaginatively named Upstairs, Downstairs and Corner. I'd never been there before and was surprised at the size of the Downstairs (the largest space); it holds about 600 but I was imagining it to be about half the size. Apparently it's quite taper-friendly - there was a threaded microphone T-bar mounted to the (low) ceiling about 25 feet from the stage - but I didn't know at the time that it was available for anyone who wanted it, so I passed and we ran from the left side of the floor.
I had seen the opener, Blue Merle, once before, and they were once again okaynotgreat. Coincidentally (or perhaps not so), a local radio station was playing their latest single, "Burning On The Sun", during my drive over there. I actually thought it was Coldplay at first, until I heard the big-ass fiddle solo right in the middle of it...and to the best of my knowledge, Coldplay, unlike Guster, didn't go and secretly make a country record with some pickin' and grinnin' in the middle of it. There was plenty of grinnin' going on at this show though - their lead singer has the permagrin going on, which hasn't changed since the last time I saw them. One thing that has changed: his hairdo. It's now cut short...just like Chris Martin. The music is innocuous enough but probably nothing I'd seek out to tape in the future.
After a 50-minute set and a 30-minute set break, Glen came out and started playing. One song into the set he apologized to the people in the front row because they couldn't hear him - the speaker stacks are so far apart that anyone standing closer than 10 feet is completely overshot by them. So to help them out, he took one of the monitor wedges at the front of the stage - those wedge-shaped speakers that actually let him hear what his bandmates are playing - and turned it around to help out the people down front. Cool in and of itself, right? Now take into account that this is his first week of touring with this band (his previous tours had, for the most part, been just him) and it becomes a pretty generous gesture, just throwing to the wind most of his ability to hear his bandmates.
A few more songs into the set and I was definitely transported back to my college days; he ended up playing all three of the songs mentioned above and several more that were in that range of recognition where I think I just might have heard them streaming out the window of a college dorm room my freshman or sophomore spring. The voice was exactly the same - and surprisingly strong - and for an hour and a half I found out why he's always among the top downloads at the Live Music Archive - it's just good music. Easy on the ears, to coin a phrase. After a few solo tunes mid-set and a relaxed finish, he came back out for an encore and played a couple more Toad songs to send the crowd home happy.
And as we speak this I'm encoding the last few songs for upload to the Live Music Archive, so look for it sometime this weekend. Next up, Josh Rouse at the Paradise on Saturday...see some of you there.
Having grown up in Montana, the chances of me catching live music was rare so it was no surprise that I'd not caught Toad the Wet Sprocket in concert before they broke up in '97. Luckily though, I ended up in California and they reunited in 2002. I was able to catch a couple of shows including their headlining New Year's Eve gig at the Roxy.