Saturday, October 23

Stubb’s BBQ (outside stage)

$25 tickets

As the legendary story goes: In a time that feels like a long ass time ago (about circa 1997), when the man (big record company, boo!) was king of the music industry, Fort Worth band Toadies tried to release a follow up album to the highly successful Rubberneck called Feeler. Unfortunately, the man just didn’t “get it” and it was scraped. In 2001, some of those tracks were salvaged and ended up on the Hell Below/Stars Above LP, while the entire rough version of Feeler ended up as an easily found internet drifter.

The Band ended up calling it quits while touring Hell Below/Stars Above due to the leave of bassist Lisa Umbarger. They released a Best Of compilation and said their goodbyes. With that chapter closed, Vocalist Vaden Todd Lewis began paying full attention to his side project with Reverend Horton Heat/Izzy Stradlin drummer Taz Bentley, The Burden Brothers, and that was that. Or so it seemed at the time.

A newly reformed Toadies ended up popping up again in 2006 for a reunion show on St. Patrick’s Day in the Lower Greenville area of Dallas, followed by a handful of TX tour dates in 2007. The last show on the mini tour ended up being recorded and released as the live album Rock Show. In August of 2008, the band’s third LP No Deliverance was released through Kirtland Records, followed by Wildflower!, Lollapalooza and ACL shows.

In August of this year, the album done so wrong by the man, Feeler, was revamped and put out as an official release with Todd Lewis saying: “Since there are unfinished versions floating around on the Internet, it is important to us that people hear it as we meant it to be.”

The Toadies live is like an explosion of energy that threatens to spill over and consume you whole at any moment. Todd’s unique vocals are creepy almost to point of campy sometimes, never loosing a certain uneasy edge. Although really, the same can be said about the band’s sound live as a whole. There’s something just not sane dwelling right below the surface. Sometimes it’s kind of an awkward situation seeing bands that have been away for over a decade and a half because your not really sure what to expect from them. Are they going to be playing new stuff only? Is it going to be like seeing them back in the day? What do I wear? Fear not, they’ve been playing a good mix of old classics where everyone in the audience will know the words, and the new stuff as well as the redone Feeler tracks pack so much blistery punch that you can just rock out if you don’t know the words. Wear what you want, don’t try to hard.