It was my first trip to the Catalyst in Santa Cruz. In fact, I think my first run to the Monterey area for about a decade. It used to be a fairly regular run to see the races at Laguna Seca, but that was before they stretched the track to meet F-1 regs, for my fellow motor head pals.
Coming in now from nearly Sacramento, the best route looked to be down 5 and across 152. Unfortunately, and unbeknownst to me until I was well committed, 152 was closed after a two-truck wreck involving a tanker and a live chicken transport, with both rig drivers being killed.
Still, I got there about 9:10, and was grateful this once for Todd's never starting at the time on the ticket. I caught two of the warm-up guy's tunes, but I didn't get his name. Odd little Tiny Tim/ Jonathan Richman/Wally Cox kind of character doing clever and wry stuff solo with a uke.
Todd and the boys came out at 9:44, finished after TWO encores at about 11:20.
I lied, I didn't make notes during the concert of the playlist, but I did steal a fuzzy snapshot of the list sitting on the stage. Unfortunately, after the drive back home just now, a bit _too_ fuzzy. There's 24 on the list, and I can make out three they didn't do, Buffalo Grass, Hammer in my Heart, and There Goes My Inspiration. Ones they DID do (and not correctly in order) were:
I Hate My Frickin ISP
Hit Me Like A Train
Play This Game
Love of the Common Man
Black and White
Lowest Common Demoninator -EXCELLENT guitar!!!
Trapped
Cliche -solo acoustic
Couldn't I Just Tell You
One World
The Ikon -sloppy work, but it still sounded terrific-
World Wide Epiphany
The Surf Talks
Todd did LOTS of guitar- if you liked his shows from the late
80s, you're gonna come away quite pleased indeed. He didn't do any
of the Twist material, and only a couple of the rap things. They did
do The Ikon, and Lowest Common Denominator. It's been the best Todd
guitar stuff I've seen since he brought out Jesse Gress to do the
axe work for him.
One of the many things I wonder about: he did Cliche solo acoustic, and you can hear through the crowd a sigh of disappointment when he finishes and pulls up another electric guitar. Why doesn't he do another solo acoustic/piano tour? I know, it must be tough with so many acid guitar fans he has, but the romantics amongst us have wants too, y'know.
I'd write more, but it's getting a bit late....
--Guy.
