The New Year is here and with it comes a smorgasbord of side shows from the Falls Festival that were held across the country to ring in the new year. One such sideshow is in Sydney tonight at the Hordern Pavilion, legendary 80’s outfit Toto, these pioneers of prog have never seemed to go out of style and are riding high on a renewed public obsession with their classic tunes.

The Hordern is just chock full of people tonight and it’s only early in the evening but the band have taken to the stage and open things up with Alone followed by classic Hold The Line. When a band come on this early you know they are going to play one hell of a set and that they did. Two hours in fact of pure prog rock goodness and no track was played as is from the album, every one had a extended solo on it from all varying instruments like pipe flute, saxophone and bongo drums all present and accounted for along side the slickest guitar work of Steve Lukather who is out of this world and the vocals of Joseph Williams sounded perfect. Over all the band were tight as.

When you have been a band for a long as Toto has you have quite an extensive catalogue so putting together a set list to highlight everything would be no easy feat but somehow Toto do this and it is captivating. You know the big hits are when the crowd become most vocal and are the ones we want to hear the most but I found great pleasure in hearing them play Michael Jacksons Human Nature, a song actually written by keyboardist Steve Pocaro, it wouldn’t be the only cover to rock our world though While My Guitar Gently Weeps was just sensational. But the night belonged to the hits and no Toto hit is bigger then Africa, this eighties jukebox gem was the main set closer and it was every bit as epic as you could have hoped for.

Tonight at Sydney’s Hordern Pavilion Toto absolutely dazzled us with their sensational musicianship, whipping up extreme levels of nostalgic buzz with not just their classic tunes Africa, Rosanna and Hold the Line but a whole feast of delectable tunes from their 40 years plus career, Melbourne’s Festival Hall is the next stop so make sure unlike love, that you are on time and witness a spectacular live show.

Review – Chad Heard