D

Venue: 300 York St, New Haven, CT 06511
https://toadsplace.com

Reviews: ¹

From: IN%”SCREWBALL@ 16-NOV-1994 07:16:45.28
To: IN%”sugar@csua.berkeley.edu”
Subj: REVIEW: Toad’s Place, New Haven, CT (includes setlist)

Toads’ Place is a small, very nice-sounding room, and the all-ages
crowd got filled the venue fairly quickly–a pleasant change from the
Providence gig. The acoustics and the attitudes of the venue staff
were vast improvements over that experienced the previous night in
Providence.

The room was fairly well packed by the time Magnapop took the stage.
Again, a very eager, very pumped-up crowd. Magnapop were again
delivered one hell of a fine set to a very warm response. They came,
they played, they impressed the audience–but that doesn’t mean that
they didn’t leave anything for Sugar. Not by a long shot.

The audience took a few minutes to get into it, exploding into frenzy
with “The Act We Act.” Plenty of audience bouncing around, much
crowd-surfin (ouch!), much cheering. The band delivered another rock-
solid performance, and the audience responded accordingly, the energy
level reaching into and beyond the explosive zone, going from height
to height, strength to strength.

The climax of the show, perhaps, came towards the end, was when the
band pulled a screaming 180-degree turn, going from the pensive,
wrenching emotional outpour of “Explode And Make Up” straight into the
twin pop explosions of “In The Eyes Of My Friends” and “Gee Angel,”
paralleled by a similar burst of crowd activity.

Five minutes of applause ensued, culminating in an inspired cover of
the Kinks’ “You Really Got Me,” performed as a duet between Ruthie
Morris of Magnapop sharing lead vocals with David Barbe. The song
erupted into a searing, strobe-lit stage frenzy that saw David Barbe
passing his bass to Ruthie, without missing a single note, picking up
a drumstick, and bashing on one of Malcolm’s cymbals.

Total set time: one hour; with encores, one hour, sixteen minutes.

——————————————————————
soundcheck

Company Book
Hoover Dam

set

Gift
Company Book
Hoover Dam
Going Home
Where Diamonds Are Halos
The Act We Act
Granny Cool
Running Out Of Time
Frustration
Changes
Slick
Clownmaster
Your Favorite Thing
Explode And Make Up
In The Eyes Of My Friends
Gee Angel

If I Can’t Change Your Mind
Mind Is An Island

You Really Got Me
——————————————————————

Next stop: Philadelphia.

btousignant@ “Bob Tousignant” 16-NOV-1994 09:45:09.38
To: IN%”sugar@soda.berkeley.edu”
Subj: 11/15 New Haven show & Sonicnet Conference

Two items here .. last nights ripping show at Toads and Monday night’s Sonicnet conference..

SONICNET – Bob was on-line for about 90 minutes from Providence before the show at the Strand. Although I wasn’t part of the conference, a friend of mine was and passed along the following :

– Bob was very relaxed and in good humor
– Favorite pastimes : bowling & mini-golf (seriously!)
– Wasn’t too psyched about the sound at the Strand
– Favorite works of his : Workbook, Zen Arcade, Copper Blue (in
order)
– Doesn’t mind moshers and surfers as long as no-one gets hurt
– Didn’t care for the SPIN article and the way it emphasized the
gay issue to the exclusion of almost everything else
– Talked about the merits of Subway grinders !!
– Before signing to RYKO, was courted by Geffen but found out that
they only wanted to sign him as an opening act fot Tommy Keane !

I’ll try to get the transcript and post it. It sounded pretty cool. There
were only about 7 people on-line with only 3 people asking questions. The
only testy time was when some AIDS activist logged in and started ranting.

NEW HAVEN SHOW – I’ll leave the posting of the set list to others (Paul ??)
but this show ripped!!!!! I unfortunately missed Magnapop (and I was at the
club at 9:30!!!).

Sugar tore into Gift at about 10:30 and rocked non-stop! The place was
packed so there was no pit but a small and steady crowd of surfers. No
stage divers like in Providence the night before (thank God!).

Highlights : Explode and Make Up was easily the high point even though it
could have gone on longer than it did. The subdued emotion was incredible,
even with the hype others have laid on this song this tour.

Clownmaster was great. Frustration much better than on disc.

Encores : IICCYM and Mind is an Island (rocked! … again)

Finale : cover (yes, a cover of a cover!) of Van Halen’s You Really Got Me
with the vocalist from Magnapop joining the band.

Lastly, about a month ago, someone posted a message saying how Bob is far
from a great guitarist. My response is simple : SEE SUGAR LIVE!!!!!

———————————————————————–
| Bob Tousignant “Bye … thanks for showing up ” |
| btousignant@ – entire transcript of Bob’s |
| stage banter. |
| |
———————————————————————–

From: IN%”JDM93002@ “Jim Miller” 16-NOV-1994 11:34:48.05
To: IN%”sugar@CSUA.Berkeley.EDU”
Subj: Toad’s Place New Haven 11.15.94

Since Screwball seems to be keeping track of the set lists, I’ll just add a few personal observations re: last night’s gig.

Toad’s was pretty well packed, even if the show never actually sold out–
good crowd, lots of enthusiasm, crowd-surfing, etc w/o too much beery
inconsideration going on. Personal high points of the Sugar set: “Mind
Is an Island” on the first encore, a beautiful version of Barbe’s
“Frustration”, and of course the big-buildup rendition of “Explode and
Make Up”. Second encore was “You Really Got Me” with Magnapop personnel
helping out — worth waiting for the ten minutes it took them to come
back on.

Nothing else remarkable to add, except that we didn’t get backstage as
one of the label reps had promised. No matter — it was a quality evening
all around.

Oh yeah — if they say they’re going on at 8:30, they’re going on at
8:30…we operated under the standard (8:30–>10:00) assumption and
missed out on Magnapop…

From: IN%”DCARRANO@ “Dean Thomas Sebastian Carrano”
16-NOV-1994 11:38:04.43
To: IN%”sugar@soda.csua.berkeley.edu”
Subj: Sugar @ Toad’s 11/15 (setlist included)

Although it wasn’t THAT loud, my ears still have a low ringing…
Magnapop came on at 8:45, and failed to impress me too much. The guitarist
and the drummer were maniacal, which was neat. But I found the songs to
be pretty samey, and the singer’s voice was pretty whiny. I can see why
they’re opening, however; they seem to be kindred spirits to Bob, even if
they’re not nearly as good at doing that loud pop thing. They were done
about 9:30.

Sugar came on at about 10:00. I can’t remember the order, so I will list
the songs played by album (previous setlists give you the idea of what
gets played when):

The Act We Act, Changes, Hoover Dam, If I Can’t Change Your Mind (1st encore),
Slick, Where Diamonds Are Halos, Clownmaster

Gift/Company Book (openers), Your Favorite Thing, Gee Angel, Granny Cool,
Explode And Make Up, Frustration, Mind Is An Island, Going Home, In The Eyes
Of My Friends

One of these went along with IICCYM as the 1st encore, but I forget which.
Highlights for me were Explode and Make Up (wow!), Changes, Slick (which
I usually don’t like much, but great here), Clownmaster, Gee Angel, and
Frustration. Hmm, that’s a lot of them 🙂 “Frustration” was really great,
quite dreamy and compelling. Bob prowled around the stage with a totally
predatory look on his face which was so scary it was funny (maybe something
he’s picked up from pro wrestling :-), yet strangely effective in terms of
enhancing the song. Throughout, Bob was in top form. David’s
songs were righteous, but his voice was a little off a lot of the time.
Unlike what other people have reported, the sound system seemed to favor
Bob’s voice more. The drummer looked nothing like Malcolm! I don’t know
what went on here, but maybe Malcolm was sick or something. He was ok,
though,
and he had a neat twitch: he jerked his head to the side EVERY SINGLE TIME
he hit the snare. He looked quite like a demented puppet.

The crowd was pretty unruly at the start; lots of shoving, and I (a pretty
short person) was concerned for my safety. But once a mosh pit opened up,
the losers could bang themselves around without causing a chain reaction
(luckily, the mosh pit was in the middle of the crowd, rather than the
front; I started off right up front, but ended up about 6 people back).
The mosh pit only contained about four people, so it just goes to show you
there’s four in every crowd who screw it up for everyone else 🙂 [sorry,
but I *do* get worried when I get pushed around against my will].
Crowd-surfing also occurred. I thought the crowd was more sedate than I
was worried it might be. But I should note that a friend of mine had a
miserable time, complaining that ten people got dropped on his head and
that the crowd knew nothing about the music. Bob definitely had a problem
with SOMETHING that was going on, I thought. During tuning breaks, shouts
of “A Good Idea!” and “Tilted!” rang out, but no dice. After the first
encore, he said “Goodbye” in a way that made me quite worried that he wouldn’t
come out again. He seemed to really mean it. The crowd had to shout for
quite a while before they came out again to do “You Really Got Me”, with
Magnapop’s guitarist backing up David on vocals. That was it. Due to the
omission of the requested rockers, the crowd left a bit disappointed, as
was I. It was great, but I got the feeling that Bob didn’t pull out his
biggest guns for whatever reason. Concert ended at 11:30 sharp.

Dean Thomas Sebastian Carrano I, Esq.
dcarrano@

rom: IN%”taw@w “Tom A Walat” 16-NOV-1994 13:39:39.22
To: IN%”btousignant@ “Bob Tousignant”
CC: IN%”sugar@soda.berkeley.edu”
Subj: RE: 11/15 New Haven show & Sonicnet Conference

On Wed, 16 Nov 1994, Bob Tousignant wrote:

> Finale : cover (yes, a cover of a cover!) of Van Halen’s You Really Got Me
> with the vocalist from Magnapop joining the band.

Ahem. “You Really Got Me” is a song from The Kinks.

Tom, exercising great self-restraintFrom: IN%”plh@ “Paul Hilcoff” 23-NOV-1994 12:21:58.88
To: IN%”sugar@soda.csua.berkeley.edu”
Subj: New Haven notes

Continuing the saga with the 15 Nov 1994 Toad’s gig:

–Just the opposite situation from Providence–big line at the box office.

–Toad’s is partitioned into several segments. The over-21 and under-21 areas are separated by netting and access to the over-21 area is guarded, yet there’s a second bar (beer only?) in the under-21 area. Very peculiar arrangement.

–Better-behaved crowd than Providence. Fewer fratboys perhaps. A more eclectic mix in any case. Most people were really into the music; the truly clueless were few and scattered.

–*Tremendous* Magnapop set, with Alex Chilton’s “Thirteen” (absent from the New York and Providence gigs) added back in.

–Spotted a bank of video monitors on the upper level above the bar. Inquiry about video recordings elicited the response that recording could be arranged in advance…at the band’s expense. Hell, a few fans could’ve chipped in for that: I think they were only asking $100. Of course, there’d still be the permission factor to contend with.

–We got the attenuated-scream version of “Explode” tonight, but it was still an emotion-packed rendition.

–Second night in a row for “You Really Got Me,” this time with Ruth Morris on vocals. Neat.

–Solid performance overall. Mutual exuberance between band and crowd, and a comfortable setting.

Paul Hilcoff
plh@

 

Article: https://www.courant.com/1994/11/17/bracing-taste-of-burnt-sugar-fuels-toads/

 

1. https://web.archive.org/web/20000830174535/http://www.csua.berkeley.edu/~stevie/sugar/reviews/New.Haven.94.11.15[↩]