Toad The Wet Sprocket, John Clinebell

TOAD THE WET SPROCKET
John Clinebell
The Brixton Redondo Beach
March 11, 2010

21-and-over club was sold out to capacity filling up with 450 people to see a small stage with Toad The Wet Sprocket. Cozy enough that you could hear other people singing along quietly or humming all of the songs of the lively intiment folk-pop alternative rock set. They played for nearly two hours of songs with one encore as well.

Folk local Santa Monica singer songwriter John Clinebell opened up the show. This quartet work a 45 minute quick set of tunes. Most of the show was concentrated on songs from his current debut CD Make It Land. Some of the songs that were done included Back To Me and No Cause Left.

Toad The Wet Sprocket were in great spirits playing to a standing room crowd. The current small tour Toad The Wet Sprocket is doing are more sit down dinner theaters shows. A lot of the show’s songs were taken from fans that wrote in on their comment page on their Myspace page.

Toad were playing older songs that they haven’t played in a long time was their goal for this show according to Glen Phillips, who said this onstage at the beginning of the set. Some of the crowd favorites were Fall Down, Crazy Life, Before You Were Born, Brother, Come Back Down, All I Want and Walk On The Ocean was the last song performed.

During the set in about the middle Randy had problems with his drums sort of falling apart a little but still was able to complete the entire set. The band came out afterward and signed autographs and even posed for some photographs too. This was a nice laid back show for the band and for the crowd. The band was joking about never playing this club before ever. But the club and patrons made the band feel comfortable.

(Review and Photo by Jonathan D. Wright)

Toad The Wet Sprocket on Myspace

John Clinebell on Myspace