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Toto
Fox Theater, Oakland, CA
August 3, 2018, 2018
By Dan Wall
Setlist: Alone, Hold the Line, Lovers in the Night, Spanish Eyes, I Will Remember, English Eyes, Jake to the Bone, Lea, Roseanna.
Acoustic Set (all partials): Georgy Porgy, Human Nature, Holyanna, No Love, Mushanga, Stop Loving You.
Goodbye Girl, Lion, Dune, While My Guitar Gently Weeps, Make Believe, Africa.
Encore: Hash Pipe (Weezer cover). 2 hours, 10 minutes.
For most of my writing career, I’ve been held to this writer’s creed-you can’t review what the artist didn’t do. In other words, if the band plays 90 minutes and omits a bunch of great songs, you can only review what was actually played, not what they didn’t play.
And now, after 43 years of writing rock reviews, I say “bullshit” to that. If you are asking fans to pay in the neighborhood of $100 to see your act, then you better damn well play what they really want to hear.
Case in point, Toto: Roughly 12 years ago, I saw Toto in Las Vegas. At that time, I wrote of its show: “a set that was missing “99,” “I’ll Supply the Love,” “Angela,” “Afraid of Love,” “White Sister” and “I Won’t Hold You Back,” all either big hits or crowd favorites would have easily made this night more memorable.”
So here we are on August 3, 2018, and Toto plays the Fox Theater in Oakland and omits THOSE VERY SAME SONGS AGAIN! Just about everyone I talked to after the show commented that if any of those songs (but mostly all) had been played, then this would have been a great show, and not just a good one. Especially “White Sister,” a song everyone wanted to hear.
Truth be told, Toto has been guilty of this for a long time. The band tends to want to show off its musical chops more than please the hit-loving crowd, and there are at least eight songs from the set played in Oakland that could have easily been replaced.
Another problem Toto faces at this point in its career is this (and doing this while celebrating its 40th anniversary); it still wants to be viable and current with new music, and most of its crowd (especially here in the states and especially me) wants to hear the hits. Don’t feel bad guys-welcome to the touring world of 2018.
Now that the missed songs are out of the way, let me tell you what the band did during its biggest show in the Bay Area in decades.
As far as the musical chops go, Toto still has it in spades. As long as guitarist Steve Lukather’s is fronting the band, his dexterity and all those tasty licks will always be front and center. He can still solo like a much younger man, and it’s his riffing that helps Toto step outside the funk/jazz spectrum it does so well and rock.
Current vocalist Joseph Williams has quite a range, and it would take some to sing the songs made famous by Bobby Kimball. Williams replaced Kimball back in 1986, took a few leaves of his own, and returned in 2010 and has been the singer in the band ever since. It’s quite possible the setlist is written the way it is because Williams wants to sing songs he sang when he was in the band. I can understand that, but don’t agree with it. Not when you have a back catalog like Toto to perform.
Bassist Shem Von Schroeck (great backing vocals), drummer Shannon Forrest, percussionist Lenny Castro, keyboardist Dominique Talpin (former Prince keyboardist, replacing David Paich on this tour) and multi-instrumentalist Warren Ham (a veteran of Ringo Starr tours with Luke) join original keyboardist Steve Porcaro to round out a very impressive backing band that can play just about any style of music.
The big songs kill but playing just three songs that really light the place up in in 130 minutes probably isn’t going to please those laying out big bucks to see the band. “Hold the Line,” “Rosanna” and “Africa” are incredible pieces of music live, with choruses that just about anyone alive can sing by heart. And songs such as “Lovers in the Night,” “Goodbye Girl” and “English Eyes” were nice additions to the set. Even the encore of Weezer’s “Hash Pipe,” a payback to the modern rock band’s recent cover of “Africa,” rocked.
So, the bottom line is this-if you are going to seeing Toto for its great musicianship and not really worried about the setlist, you’ll have a fine time. But if you want to hear those songs listed above, you will be probably walk away disappointed.
