{"id":890,"date":"2013-07-27T14:10:00","date_gmt":"2013-07-27T14:10:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/?p=890"},"modified":"2026-06-27T14:13:09","modified_gmt":"2026-06-27T14:13:09","slug":"toad-the-wet-sprocket","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/?p=890","title":{"rendered":"Toad the Wet Sprocket"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

July 2013, Frederick Brown Jr. Amphitheatre, <\/strong>Peachtree City, Ga.<\/strong><\/p>\n

It\u2019s 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\u2019s a delicate balance.<\/p>\n

But that\u2019s exactly where Toad the Wet Sprocket found itself, hitting the road to promote New Constellation<\/em>, the band\u2019s first collection of songs since 1997\u2019s Coil<\/em>. For a band with such a stellar set of previous tracks, luring people out to see it live was not the hard part \u2014 getting them to buy into the new songs was. Turns out it wasn\u2019t too difficult at all.<\/p>\n

I had the pleasure to see the band\u2019s show in Peachtree City at the fabulous Frederick Brown Jr. Amphitheater, and while I hadn\u2019t seen the band before, I can\u2019t imagine it sounded better than it did on this night. The 21-song set included five songs from the new album \u2014 including the excellent \u201cCalifornia Wasted\u201d \u2014 but also held gems from its first album \u201cBread & Circus (Way Away)\u201d as well as a healthy smattering of its well-known classics.<\/p>\n

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\u2019s a thing in Peachtree City apparently) and remarking how much he liked playing in the greater Atlanta area.<\/p>\n

Before playing an unforgettable version of \u201cCome Back Down\u201d from the 1990 masterpiece Pale<\/em>, 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\u2019s still a part of who you are today \u2014 though I would argue it\u2019s one of the best songs from the \u201990s. The A cappella portion at the song\u2019s end is a concert moment I won\u2019t soon forget.<\/p>\n

\u201cGood Intentions,\u201d \u201cAll I Want,\u201d \u201cSomething\u2019s Always Wrong,\u201d \u201cFall Down,\u201d \u201cCome Down\u201d \u2014 when Glen had to start the encore-ending \u201cWalk on the Ocean\u201d 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\u2019s \u201cAlways Look on the Bright Side of Life\u201d played. On this night, it was an easy suggestion to take to heart.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

July 2013, Frederick Brown Jr. Amphitheatre, Peachtree City, Ga. It\u2019s 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 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":891,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[132],"class_list":["post-890","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-concerts","tag-toad-the-wet-sprocket"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/890","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=890"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/890\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":892,"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/890\/revisions\/892"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/891"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=890"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=890"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=890"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}