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Celebrating 25 years at the top, Toto checked into the Shepherd Bush Empire tonight for the London spot on their
all too brief tour of the UK. And what a show the sell-out crowd were treated to.
The band accentuated the rock side of Toto in the selection of songs presented from their vast armoury of material. Tonight,
the songs are played out by Steve (Lukather), Mike (Porcaro), Simon (Phillips), Bobby (Kimball), David (Paich) and special guest musicians Tony Spinner and John Jessel.
Classic songs from the band’s first
album ‘Girl Goodbye’, ‘Child’s Anthem’ and ‘I’ll supply the love’ feature early on in the set. There are cover songs too from the catalogue of the band’s own musical heroes in the shape of ‘While
my guitar gently weeps’ and Steely Dan’s ‘Bodhisattva’, both of which feature on Toto’s recent ‘Through the looking glass’ covers CD.
Introducing the
band’s twenty year-old ballad ‘I won’t hold you back’, Steve Lukather explains the band’s good fortune in receiving windfall profits emanating from Roger Sanchez’s summer 2001 smash ‘Another chance’
after the US DJ producer failed to seek the band’s permission to sample the song on his hit. Sounds tough!
Mike Porcaro is awesome tonight and still for me one of the bass greats of all time, ever
inventive, his carefully stated lines bubbling under the surface of the mayhem created by Lukather and Paich.
‘Africa’, ‘Rosanna’ and ‘Hold the Line’ duly arrive as surely they must but there is
only a fleetingly glimpse of ‘Georgy Porgy’ – still for me the greatest Toto song ever. There’s no ‘I’ll be over you’ or ‘Without your love’ but you never know, they might just make it, next time
round!
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