A couple weeks ago, I shelled out $80 (I know, I know) to head to MGM Northfield Park for a live performance from the now cult-famous Toto in the Center Stage concert-style music hall. Now more or less ironically famous amongst the Instagram generation for their ultra hit song “Africa” (which has been covered by the likes of Weezer apart from a memorable tribute by Kristen Bell and Dax Shepard and endless memefication), Toto brought their Dogs of Oz Tour to Northeast Ohio, playing to nearly 1,800 gray-haired music lovers, the generational contemporaries of the remaining original band members themselves.
Myself and another guitarist-nerd went to the show not for the aforementioned David Paich and Jeff Porcaro-penned song about a man’s love for a continent, but mostly to see legendary guitarist Steve Lukather, who has played as a studio and touring guitarist with an enormous variety of world-famous musicians ranging from Aretha Franklin and Warren Zevon to Ringo Starr and Michael Jackson. Lukather was a close friend of the late Eddie Van Halen, with whom he performed on Jackson’s “Beat It”—Lukather performing the famous chord riff and lead part, and Van Halen recording the guitar solo. Lukather has also performed with Edgar Winter, Donna Summer, Peter Cetera, Elton John, Jeff Beck, America, Eric Clapton, and so many more that it would gum up the Falls Free Press’s server space to list them all. He even tried out for Frank Zappa’s band as a youth and was famously rejected before Toto became a target of Zappa’s insults on his album Joe’s Garage in 1979. Amongst guitarists, Lukather is a humble virtuoso with an everyman personality; something, one might say, of a living legend.
Admittedly, I was a bit put off by the exorbitant ticket price, but after viewing an hour-plus interview with Lukather by musician/producer and YouTube personality Rick Beato, I was moved to pull the trigger on Toto tickets after all. The price difference between the stadium style seats in the Northeast Ohio casino’s music venue from which I’d seen progressive rockers King Crimson perform twice and the floor seats was so small that I bit the bullet and got as close to the stage as I could, which made the show all the more worth it, but the concert was somewhat uncharacteristic of a typical rock show.
For one thing, as I sat in the TAP Sports Bar before entering the concert hall, I felt sure that the show would not start promptly at 7:30pm as indicated on the ticket. After all, with no scheduled opener, who would anticipate a punctual start to a rock concert? Nevertheless, the band hit the stage right on time, reportedly with the opening song “Afraid of Love“ followed by “Hold the Line,” a familiar classic rock song that you probably don’t know by title, and which you are even less likely to know is Toto. In any case, I’d missed it entirely and arrived during “Falling in Between,” which preceded “I’ll Be Over You” and an impressive piano solo by Dominique “Xavier” Taplin, whose other projects have included the funk/hip-hop/jazz fusion outfit Ghost-Note and one of the last iterations of Prince’s New Power Generation.
The band then played through a rendition of “White Sister” before making its way to the 1978 classic “Georgy Porgy.” Next up was the 1988 hit “Pamela,” followed by one of the show’s highlights, “Kingdom of Desire.” Song after song, Lukather shone as the main draw of the band at this stage of its career, but as they warmed up, the performance got better and better.
Drummer Robert “Scut” Searight, also of Ghost-Note and a member of the Grammy-winning jazz/funk band Snarky Puppy took the spotlight briefly for a funkified drum solo, after which Lukather, in what he called a “senior moment,” nearly began the hit “You Supply the Love,” before realizing that it was’t the next song on the set list. Having gotten the crowd out of their seats, the band instead ran through “Waiting for Your Love,” and then cranked out a deep cut that turned out to be the gem of the set, a prog rock rollick by the name of “Home of the Brave.” This was followed by two of the band’s most famous hits, “Rosanna,” and—you guessed it—“Africa.” Lukather seemed to appreciate the excitement for the song he once described as “dumb” and having “goofy lyrics,” and pandered to the crowd appropriately, with the band even arranging the song for crowd participation in the form of a singalong.
With that, the show came to its artificial close, the band returning to give the crowd an encore of The Beatles’ “With a Little Help from My Friends.” The arrangement was based on the famous Joe Cocker cover of Ringo Starr’s Beatles hit, and every member seemed to get a singing part, with Lukather crooning the meatier parts of the verse.
When the house lights came on in Center Stage, the band had played just shy of two hours, leaving the crowd to pull away from MGM Northfield Park before 10pm—hardly a raucous rock show. Still, the band delivered on hits, with Lukather ever the star of the show. Though the price tag was hefty, it was an impressive night of live music I won’t soon forget.
