Forty years of musical history, and 15 minutes of Africa – Review: Toto, Royal Albert Hall
Everyone knows at least one song by Toto. Even the band don’t refer to it by name, they just call it “That Song”, as in “Are you ready for That Song?” “Do you wanna sing That Song with us?” But before we get to That Song, there’s 40 years of musical history to consider, condensed into two and a half hours of shiny jazz-inflected pop rock performed by badly dressed men.
Even when Toto were at their most popular, they were deeply unfashionable, an ensemble of filthy rich young stars in the most glamorous branch of the entertainment business decked out in boxy jackets, pastel shirts, sensible shoes and blow dried perms. Toto’s own guitarist Steve Lukather has described them as “the world’s most uncool band, the red-headed stepchild of rock’n’roll who gets beaten when nobody’s looking.” Frankly, four decades hasn’t made much of a difference. Singer Joseph Williams at least made a bit of an effort, although I am not convinced his multi-coloured cap and diamante studded floor length leather coat is going to set catwalks on fire this summer. He looked like a Viking drag queen. The rest of the band looked exactly what they are: late middle-aged session men who let their wives do their shopping.
I am not a fashion correspondent, however. Toto’s reputation is mainly based upon the fact that they can really play. According to their own publicity, the Toto band have appeared individually and collectively on an utterly staggering 5000 albums, including work by Michael Jackson, Elton John, The Bee Gees, Steely Dan, Paul McCartney, Pink Floyd, Aretha Franklin, Rod Stewart, Neil Diamond, Lionel Richie, Cher, Pink, Jessie J and Taylor Swift. Toto are technically dazzling musicians, something which they never forsake an opportunity to demonstrate. The sound of Toto live was a dense mesh of incessant virtuoso soloing. No song was complete without a lengthy guitar, piano, synth or percussion solo, or preferably all four, with diversions for drum and bass interludes. Lukather solemnly introduced a version of Beatles’ classic While My Guitar Gently Weeps then proceeded to blubber all over it in a torrent of notes. His hysterical guitar style was about as far removed from gentle weeping as it is possible to get.
Occasionally a song broke out amidst the jazz fusion instrumentals and multi-part progressive rock power ballads. The audience at the Royal Albert Hall got to their feet to sing along to Hold The Line and Rosanna, Toto’s other big crossover hits. In a relaxed acoustic interlude, the band even calmed down long enough to chat genially about their history, delivering stripped back versions of fan favourites and their own warm and sinuous take on Human Nature, which apparently they knocked off for Michael Jackson whilst in the middle of mixing “That Song.” A bit more of this kind of informal intimacy would have gone a very long way. Given the space, pianist David Paich delivered sparkling flourishes with gorgeous elan but most of the time his sensitive playing vanished beneath the sheer density of sound produced when eight musicians all show off at the same time.
The climax, of course, was “That Song.” Toto played their classic 1982 hit Africa for 15 minutes, six members of the band even leaving the stage in the middle for an extended percussion solo from the fabulously named Lenny Castro. And, frankly, when you have a song as great as Africa up your collective sleeve, you can pretty much do what you want for the rest of the show and your audience will bear with you. As sure as Kilimanjaro rises like Olympus above the Serengeti, there is nothing quite like hearing 5,000 fans enthusiastically bless the rains in Africa.
