Location: Vienna (Wien) / Arena Open Air / Austria
Date: Wednesday, 22.08.2012
We’d already tasted the sweetness of Toto perfection on 31.07.2012 in Majano, Italy, near Udine, but the devil wouldn’t leave us alone, because this much-loved band’s summer tour had one more very tempting stop: the Arena in Vienna, Austria, or more precisely its outdoor stage, the “Arena Open Air”. The date fell three weeks after that Majano show.
Once you grasp the greatness and the sheer musical brilliance of this band, especially their stage execution, which is wrapped in nothing but superlatives, there are very few gigs left that can top the experience. Simply put, you realize you can never, ever get tired of a Toto show.
Bringing in the Graz pop rockers from the eighties, Opus, turned out to be a really smart pick by the organizer. In 1985 the band swept the world’s biggest acts off the top of the charts and smashed sales records with their hit Live Is Life (a song everybody knows far too well, also thanks to the cover by Slovenian alter-industrial usurpers Laibach). They hit the stage just as ordered! At 7 p.m. sharp. In a little under an hour they rattled off their most beloved songs and spoiled the home crowd! Positive energy everywhere. The audience really woke up for Flyin’ High!, an acoustic number that Opus singer Herwig Rüdisser introduced as a song they used to play together with the late Falco. Other hits included Eleven, Yellow Fellows and Time Of My Life. At the end of the main set the Arena naturally exploded when Opus kicked off that famous rhythm. Just bare drumming opens the song. The intro to the hit Live Is Life. A band that’s been around since 1973 is seasoned down to the last detail! They delivered a summery set with excellent sound, and Herwig’s vocals got generous backing and harmonizing from a female duo. Herwig surprised with a top-notch vocal performance; his range has stayed completely untouched over the years. For the encore the band slammed out a song that had to have been written in the seventies. Stylistically, definitely, since it made no secret of some parallels with symphonic progressive rock. Unfortunately I don’t know the title of this track, really a mini suite, but it was driven by chunky Hammond organ chords that revealed Opus grew up on ELP, Focus and Deep Purple. A great experience that completely won us over!
Toto started taking shape in the second half of the seventies. It’s a band made up of top-tier studio musicians for whom playing live is an extra challenge. Over the years the band has lived through plenty of highs and even more painful lows. In 1992 they lost one of the founding members, a man regarded as one of the most respected drummers in the history of popular music, Jeff Porcaro. On top of that, since 1984 they’d been dealing with a constant revolving door of lead singers, and they never again enjoyed the kind of success they reaped with the 1982 album Toto IV. Still, under Steve Lukather’s baton the guys kept at it until 2008. That was the turning point, when guitarist Lukather decided he was done with the band and declared that Toto were no more. Luckily for everyone who loves their music, in 2010 Lukather and the gang decided to revive the original lineup and fire it up every year for a handful of summer concert dates. After many years keyboardists David Paich and Steve Porcaro rejoined the band on stage. Lead vocal duties went back, after more than 20 years, to Joseph Williams, who contributed his voice to the Toto legacy on the albums Farenheit and The Seventh One. Also on board is the indispensable drummer Simon Phillips, who has been behind the kit for Toto ever since Jeff Porcaro’s death. Rounding out the lineup is one of the most respected bassists in the music world, Nathan East. He’s filling in for the ailing bassist Mike Porcaro, which is one of the main reasons Toto are still playing live. The tours are staged every year partly to raise funds to help Mike and his family.
The Vienna show was one of the last on this year’s European tour. As a result, you could notice more energy, more ease and a tighter groove among the band members. The venue was packed and sold out down to the last corner. For comparison, in 2006 Toto only managed to fill this same venue halfway. Here’s another fact showing that Toto are getting better and more in demand at European venues year after year, even though they haven’t released a studio album since 2006.
This two-hour-and-15-minute concert feast kicked off with a track from “The Seventh One” called Only The Children. Joseph Williams handled the vocals, just like on the original. Lukather’s guitar riff drives the song and instantly lifted the atmosphere. Lukather talks to the crowd throughout the whole show and spreads good vibes among everyone there. This is a guy who can play absolutely anything on his instrument and hop from genre to genre with feather-light ease, and in recent years he has changed his approach with Toto quite a bit. He doesn’t jump to the front anymore, doesn’t show off, and sticks to whatever guitar playing suits the moment best. But of course he never skimps on the “shock-and-awe” bit when his moment comes and it’s time for a solo. His solos build and escalate from moment to moment, gaining speed and variety, and give you the feeling that everything is being played with incredible ease.
Next came Hydra and St. George and the Dragon from the second studio album, “Hydra”, from 1979. Hydra is one of the most demanding compositions Toto have ever created, and live, with plenty of improvisation, it can stretch to as long as ten minutes. David Paich handles the vocals, as on the original, pretty solidly. He looks like a strange fellow behind the keyboards. It’s not Paich’s fault he’s stocky and on the short side, or that extra pounds stick to him so easily. That’s just how mother nature made him. He’s only partly to blame for the extra weight “the little bear” has piled on over the years. And still Paich isn’t ashamed of it, quite the opposite. He wears untied sneakers, worn-out bermuda shorts and a tailcoat thrown over the top that hangs almost to the floor. Topped off, of course, with a top hat and dark glasses. As this kind of “giant midget”, Paich would fit right on the cover of any album by the legendary British prog rock heavyweights Gentle Giant.
But with all due respect to David, the man is a genius! He’s the author or co-author of all of Toto’s biggest hits and was the driving force behind Toto’s output on the first eight studio albums. Today his playing gives that unmistakable Toto sound that we missed during his absence between 2003 and 2010, when the gap was filled by another top studio master, Greg Phillinganes.
The crowd went wild for the first time when the opening bars of the well-known hit Rosanna rang out. Lead vocals are split between Lukather and Williams, who did a good job filling the hole left by original singer Bobby Kimball. At 65, Kimball was no longer up to the demanding task of handling the vocal lines, which in Toto are sometimes insanely difficult and high, so Williams’ return is a welcome breath of fresh air.
Two songs from the album “Farenheit” followed. Lea, which gets its special charm from Lukather’s acoustic guitar and fantastic vocal backing. This is where backing vocalists Jenny Douglas McRae and Mabvuto Carpenter shine for the first time, while Steve Porcaro, who wrote this song for his daughter, really pours his heart into the performance and is positively bursting with feeling.
I Won’t Hold You Back was the next Toto hit from 1982, sung by Steve Lukather. His voice here is far from the original, much more hoarse and deep than on the record. Still, this ballad sounds incredibly warm live and once again takes us to the kind of perfection only Toto can conjure up in ballads. The vocal harmonies, the masterful sounds from under Steve Porcaro’s fingers and Lukather’s soulful, melodic guitar solo can’t leave you cold.
Then came We Can Make It Tonight from the album Fahrenheit. Toto hadn’t played it on tour since 1987. In general, the setlist has been thoroughly shaken up. They’re playing plenty of songs they haven’t played live in at least 20 years. Another interesting thing about this tour is that there’s not a single song in the setlist recorded after 1992.
Next up was Pamela from The Seventh One. Joseph Williams handles the vocals well. Toward the end of Pamela, David Paish and Steve Lukather in particular served up a hefty improvisation chunk. That’s where Toto are at their best. They can stretch an original way out and, through improvisation, offer something new and unheard at every show. Joseph Williams takes over the vocals again, because Human Nature is next, which Michael Jackson sang on the original. Human Nature was written by Steve Porcaro. On the original studio version he played it with the help of his Toto buddies. That’s why Toto play it at every show this year as a tribute to Jackson and to the ailing bassist Mike Porcaro.
Manuela Run, How Many Times and Carmen are three more goodies that Toto hadn’t played live in ages. Carmen especially, with Paich and Williams trading vocals, sounds fantastic and carries a special energy and charisma. On the original, from the album “Isolation”, released in 1984, Fergie Frederiksen sang alongside Paich. Williams once again nailed the original, even though he reworked some of the high lines, with a little help from the amazing Jenny Douglas McRae.
To the end we heard two more hits from the Toto legacy. Stop Loving You, where drummer Simon Phiilips finally got his five minutes at the end and, with Lukather and East backing him, showed off some incredible tricks from his rich repertoire. Then the opening piano chord rang out…Hold the line. Their first single off the first album, called Toto. One of the three most recognizable Toto creations. Jenny Douglas McRae stepped to the front and together with Williams conjured up a different but still tasteful version of the song. Where the song ends on the original, they stretch it out, and what followed was Lukather’s masterclass, which meant nothing less and nothing more than a complete revelation of six-string theory. He served up an outstanding solo that, to everyone’s delight, just kept going and going. It slowly built to a climax, and Luke sailed from delicate, softly wailing, carefully woven tones into a proper storm of destructive eruption, with arpeggios cut at the speed of light. But Luke’s lesson didn’t end the song, because it was followed by a vocal exhibition from Jenny Douglas McRae, which made this beefed-up Hold The Line one of the magical highlights of Toto’s current tour.
After they left the stage and the crowd roared its approval, Toto came back. Africa was up. Here too they treated themselves, and everyone there, to something extra. Africa went past the ten-minute mark and delivered tons of fun. Nathan East played a superior solo spot and then goofed around with the audience, who repeated his melodies back to him. The response was more than excellent and Africa reached a new dimension that you couldn’t hear at shows before. On this tour Toto closed the show with the classic Home Of The Brave from The Seventh One. Another epic piece of the Toto legacy that sent the sold-out Open Air Arena into a final delirium. Steve Lukather’s striking guitar phrase stepped to the front, backed by Porcaro’s curtain of synthesizers, the kind an average AOR band would kill for if it ever occurred to them. With it, Toto pushed the closing mood of the show into a theatrical crescendo!
After an experience like this with the perfectionists of Toto you’re filled with fresh energy. After the show we saw satisfaction and approval on everyone’s faces. Toto are announcing a bigger tour for next year to mark their 35th anniversary. Hoping it really happens, those of us who were there will be reliving the memories of that perfect show in Vienna for a long time.
Toto text by: Matej Čerič & Aleš Podbrežnik
Intro and Opus text by: Aleš Podbrežnik
photos: Aleš Podbrežnik
Setlist:
1. Only the Children
2. Hydra
3. St. George and the Dragon
4. Rosanna
5. Lea
6. Could This Be Love
7. I Won’t Hold You Back
8. We Can Make It Tonight
9. Pamela
10. Human Nature
11. Manuela Run
12. How Many Times
13. Carmen
14. Stop Loving You
15. Hold the Line
—encore—
16. Africa
17. Home Of The Brave
