Location: Zagreb / Dom sportova (small hall) / Croatia
Date: 09.03.2018
American rock giants and masters of musical perfection Toto dropped in on our southern neighbors in Zagreb during their current ’40 Trips Around the Sun’ tour, which marks their venerable 40th anniversary. Instead of giving them a hall worthy of their reputation, the promoters stuck them in the small hall at Dom sportova, and that had some fatal consequences on the night: the sound suffered badly from the limitations, and with it, of course, the whole performance of the rock veterans. The reason for holding the show in the smaller hall was supposedly that the figure skating championships were taking place in Zagreb’s Arena at the same time. The gig wasn’t sold out and there were still quite a few empty seats in the stands, but down on the floor it was downright suffocating, packed in like sardines in a can. Most of the crowd also looked and behaved quite differently from what you’d usually expect at a Toto show.
Still, so it’s not all negatives, it has to be said that the Toto foursome, who, together with their musical helpers, currently consist of the “old cats” in the form of guitar grandmaster Steve Lukather, versatile keyboardist David Paich, synth wizard Steve Porcaro and vocal ace Joseph Williams, delivered a masterful performance and thrilled everyone there with an extremely interesting selection of hits and a few almost “forgotten” songs, among them some tracks that hadn’t been played live in ages, almost never, or even for the first time in their career. They opened the show with a new song, “Alone”, which first appeared on the recently released ‘best of’ album “Greatest Hits – 40 Trips Around the Sun” (2018).
That was followed, quite surprisingly and rather early considering they usually play it toward the end of their sets, by the beloved evergreen “Hold the Line” from way back in 1978, when the self-titled Toto debut came out. Williams was in splendid vocal form this evening, with Lukather and Paich assisting as usual, the two of them stepping up a few times in key solo vocal roles as well. The vocal harmonies were once again a real treat for the ears. The supporting “crew” proved themselves too, which is hardly surprising for longtime guest percussionist Lenny Castro, whom longtime fans know very well. Drummer Shannon Forrest, who is technically well above average, is a pretty thankless guy to compare with Simon Phillips, but he’s by no means to be underestimated. He’s yet another highly respected hired gun who has worked with numerous leading names in rock and country. Since Phillips’ replacement Keith Carlock left, Toto are still without an official drummer.
The only question marks going into this show were the relatively young and unknown bassist Shem von Schroeck and the saxophonist/flutist/backing vocalist Warren Ham. The latter is a seasoned musician who has played live in the past with John Elefante-era Kansas, Donna Summer and Olivia Newton-John. Between 1986 and 1988 he also briefly toured with Toto. With his wind-instrument parts, Ham nicely spiced up most of the Toto standards and gave some of them a stronger jazz stamp, while the rhythm section did its job more than satisfactorily.
This evening, which already in the first part served up surprises like the “Toto IV” (1982) standard “Lovers In the Night”, “English Eyes” from the album “Turn Back” (1981) and the big British hit “I Will Remember” from the album “Tambu” (1995), also gave us one more previously unreleased song, “Spanish Sea”. During the art-rock instrumental “Jake to the Bone” from “Kingdom of Desire” (1992), Lukather clearly demonstrated his astonishing lead guitar chops, of which there was no shortage all night, while the ballad “Lea” from “Fahrenheit” (1986) made sure the romantic souls got their share too. And those of us with at least one heartbreak behind us enjoyed the big hit “Rosanna” even more. They played it, just like “Hold the Line”, relatively early.
For years now Toto have had a habit of playing a ‘medley’, a string of songs that usually contains shortened versions of different pieces from their rich career. This time the ‘medley’ was acoustic-leaning, which meant Mr. Lukather could comfortably sit down with an acoustic guitar in his lap while various anecdotes about how the songs came about interrupted the individual numbers. Opinions on Toto’s live ‘medleys’ are mostly divided among fans. On one hand, it’s a chance to hear some of the songs they rarely play live, but on the other hand, cutting them short, especially in an acoustic dress, is almost ‘blasphemous’. “Georgy Porgy” fared worst among the acoustic shortened arrangements, and some of us also missed a guest female singer from previous tours. Faring better were the shortened take on Jackson’s “Human Nature”, on which most of the Toto members played back in 1983, the “Isolation” (1984) surprise “Holyanna”, the “Mindfields” (1999) surprise “No Love”, and both shortened “The Seventh One” (1988) classics, “Mushanga” and “Stop Loving You”.
Besides the shortened acoustic version of “Holyanna” and the no-brainer hit “Stranger In Town”, the rest of the evening brought more from the album “Isolation”, including the long-forgotten but excellent song “Lion”, which Toto hadn’t played at their shows since the mid-eighties. Perhaps the biggest surprise of the night was the performance of the instrumental “Dune (Desert Theme)”, which Toto created in late 1984 for the sci-fi film Dune. A bit less impressive, at least for those of us who want to hear more original Toto material, was the Beatles/George Harrison cover of the rock classic “While My Guitar Gently Weeps”, which Lukather rarely forgets to put on the setlist. The rarely played numbers we got to hear this evening also include “Girl Goodbye” and “Angela” from the self-titled Toto debut. Among the evergreen standards, in the second part of Toto’s show in Zagreb we also heard “Make Believe” and of course their biggest hit, “Africa”, which, as usual, closed the main set. For the encore Toto played the evening’s ‘farewell’ song, which, contrary to expectations, was “The Road Goes On”, yet another surprise from the album “Tambu”. Interestingly, two big hits were missing from the night, “Pamela” and “I Won’t Hold You Back”, which doesn’t happen all that often.
Despite the poor sound in an unsuitable hall, Toto delivered a fantastic musical party in Zagreb that lasted noticeably longer than usual and, besides the expected standards, featured plenty of rarely played musical gems from their rich treasure trove. All four members and their supporting crew deserve top marks for a performance that was a perfect mix of exceptional professionalism, tightness, spontaneity and wit. Less impressive this evening, as already mentioned, was the sound, which was at its best near the mixing desk. As for volume and screaming, the crowd undoubtedly took first place that night, but that’s not necessarily always a good thing, since some of us missed a few of Lukather’s quips because of it, like his opening greeting of “dobro veče Zagreb” that won the locals over. Considerably more tasteless was the visibly slimmer Paich, who, between swapping top hats and dandyish strolls around the stage whenever he ended up at the mic, repeatedly bragged about his Croatian roots, since his great-grandfather comes from Split, even though, unlike Lukather, he hasn’t learned a single Croatian word so far. His speeches about ‘my people’ and ‘my audience’, which made the hall thunder and boil over with excitement, were visibly getting on the other three Toto members’ nerves, so Lukather didn’t stay in his debt on one occasion and deftly flipped Paich’s words about the ‘brotherly audience’, which suddenly lost a good deal of their nationalistic-cheerleading-sensationalist charge. Then again, Paich is known for dropping the odd ‘clanger’, like on 31.7.2012 at a Toto concert in Majano, Italy, when he introduced special guests Perpetuum Jazzile as a Croatian group.
author: Peter Podbrežnik
photos: LAA Agency
Setlist:
—set 1—
1. Alone
2. Hold the Line
3. Lovers in the Night
4. Spanish Sea
5. I Will Remember
6. English Eyes
7. Jake to the Bone
8. Lea
9. Rosanna
—acoustic set—
10. Miss Sun
11. Georgy Porgy
12. Human Nature
13. Holyanna
14. No Love
15. Mushanga
16. Stop Loving You
—set 2—
17. Girl Goodbye
18. Angela
19. Lion
20. Dune (Desert Theme)
21. While My Guitar Gently Weeps
22. Stranger in Town
23. Make Believe
24. Africa
—encore—
25. The Road Goes On
