July 2013, Frederick Brown Jr. Amphitheatre, Peachtree City, Ga.
It’s not an easy thing to do, making an album more than 15 years after your last one, especially when those albums you made years ago found themselves a passionate audience. Imagine going back on the road again, wanting to play those new songs while your fans only want you to play the old ones. It’s a delicate balance.
But that’s exactly where Toad the Wet Sprocket found itself, hitting the road to promote New Constellation, the band’s first collection of songs since 1997’s Coil. For a band with such a stellar set of previous tracks, luring people out to see it live was not the hard part — getting them to buy into the new songs was. Turns out it wasn’t too difficult at all.
I had the pleasure to see the band’s show in Peachtree City at the fabulous Frederick Brown Jr. Amphitheater, and while I hadn’t seen the band before, I can’t imagine it sounded better than it did on this night. The 21-song set included five songs from the new album — including the excellent “California Wasted” — but also held gems from its first album “Bread & Circus (Way Away)” as well as a healthy smattering of its well-known classics.
Glen Phillips, who has created a nice solo career, sounded clear and strong throughout the night. He was comfortable, telling stories of almost getting run over by teenagers on golf carts (it’s a thing in Peachtree City apparently) and remarking how much he liked playing in the greater Atlanta area.
Before playing an unforgettable version of “Come Back Down” from the 1990 masterpiece Pale, he noted how it was a song he wrote sitting in his bedroom as a teenager. It must be odd to play a song 25 years after you wrote it and feel it’s still a part of who you are today — though I would argue it’s one of the best songs from the ’90s. The A cappella portion at the song’s end is a concert moment I won’t soon forget.
“Good Intentions,” “All I Want,” “Something’s Always Wrong,” “Fall Down,” “Come Down” — when Glen had to start the encore-ending “Walk on the Ocean” a second time after a false start, it almost seemed too much. But in the end, the band got out the songs it wanted, and the fans got more than their share as well. As the band walked off stage, Monty Python’s “Always Look on the Bright Side of Life” played. On this night, it was an easy suggestion to take to heart.
