MUSIC
Phillips satisfies an intimate audience
Glen Phillips' name doesn't have the punch of a Kanye West or Rihanna or anyone else who might draw a crowd here, but it's a shame that fewer than, I'd guess, 200 people showed up Thursday to see his performance at the Hawaiian Hut.
Then again, fewer than 100 had showed up at Borders at Ward Centre early last month to witness an all-hits "unplugged" set by Hoobastank in a miniconcert meet-and-greet prior to the band's appearance at Band Camp IV.
Oh well, who wants to share such an experience with 3,000 other people? I love intimate shows like these because they allow fans to hear musicianship while stripping the artists of any rock-star posturing. You're left with something raw and, in a word, magical.
Phillips alluded to the phenomenon in what for him was uncomfortable silence between songs when the applause died and he was still left tuning his guitar.
"Can you guys pretend you're drunk and trying to pick up somebody?" he asked the polite crowd. "Talk about Paris Hilton or something else that doesn't matter."
The front man for Toad the Wet Sprocket was much more garrulous than during his first solo acoustic show here a few years ago at Anna Bannanas, and his self-deprecating Doomsday humor, combined with a bashful milquetoast demeanor, proved just as entertaining and charming as his music. This is nothing new to Toad fans familiar with the singer's lilting, jangly melodies, often combined with some of the bleakest yet most honest lyrics ever written.
Phillips' banter opened a window as to how his mind works, introducing many songs with a bit of personal history. "Train Wreck" was described as "a slightly mutilated love song. Sorry, but that's the best I can come up with," he said, explaining that even after 13 years of marriage, he lives in fear that his relationship will someday end, even when it seems to be going well.
In two sets, Phillips played songs off his newest CD, "Mr. Lemons," as well as previous solo albums and, to the audience's delight, familiar Toad songs, before thinking to ask what we might want to hear.
With song titles flying left and right, he admitted to being sorry he asked but obliged with "All I Want" and "Fred Meyers," a song inspired, he said, by a future post-apocalypic community in which people are forced to move into big-box stores for sustenance and protection. He continued to speculate that a world without oil and technology would render penthouse fortresses unlivable and might build a better community by forcing people to relate to each other instead of through electronic devices.
There was a glitch when Phillips forgot a lyric there, but it's nice when the audience can lend a prompt.
He also delivered a version of the Huey Lewis and the News hit "I Want a New Drug" that sounded ominous and jazzy, elevating it from the 1980s pop cliché it was.
The sound of applause brought him back for an encore on ukulele.
Phillips has reunited with his band for an off-and-on series of concerts. It would be nice to get them all out here again.