In great spirits, the band offered a great set to satisfy both casual fan and Toad devotees alike from their tambourine banging staple “Nightingale,” rarities “Rings” and “Stupid,” to crowd-pleasing minor hits “Something’s Always Wrong” and “Fall Down”, not to mention those two other songs everyone knows. Given the energy, the tightness, the great harmonies, for those that didn’t know any better, you’d never know they’d ever taken a five-year hiatus.
With his humbly honest and wistful vocals, Phillips, as if he hadn’t already, thoroughly charmed the audience with an acoustic rendition of Randy Newman’s “Political Science” and gave the fans a taste of what he’d been up to since his split from the band. His solo stuff is good: solid, passionate, and intellectual. However, followed by an average offering from Randy Guss and Todd Nichols’ band, Lapdog, the return to Toad’s beautifully idyllic “Windmills” only proved that simply, because they wholly complement each other, there is an undeniable chemistry when these guys get together. Individually, neither Phillips nor Lapdog has yet achieved quite the acclaim or popularity that they did together as a band.
Over the years, in their own quest for being and meaning, in both fun and seriousness, Toad has managed to produce works of great honesty, beauty, and of meaning. By tone, harmony, words, and voice, the message they convey, sometimes clear, sometimes subtle, is always the same: in the darkest of times, there is always hope, something that Toad fans have a great abundance of.
By the end of the show, fans exited satisfied even if left yearning for more and with the hope that the reunion is not merely a temporary one. The band’s decision to end with the more obscure “All Things in Time” is perhaps their answer to the oft-asked question, one that was certainly on everyone’s mind that night, “Will you guys get back together for real already?”
Unsure of their own future and with separate projects in the works, it seems the answer for now is all things in time. And Toad the Wet Sprocket is undoubtedly well worth the wait.
Article comments
1 - Chris
I missed them when they came to Chicago, and I'm green as a . . . eh, toad with envy.