Unplugged and Ready to Rock-Folk

It has been a particular kind of season for Santa Barbara-grown, ’90s -spawned music acts Gone Big, coming home to play, and in a homecoming kind of way. Toad the Wet Sprocket, amid their acoustic and 40th-anniversary-geared Rings album tour, made a sweet and soft landing back at the Lobero Theatre for a two-nighter last week, only a week after “hopecore” avatar Jack Johnson filled the Santa Barbara Bowl for a two-nighter. 

In another synchronicity link, Toad’s welcome unplugged wardrobe mirrored the arrival of wink punk band Nerf Herder’s acoustic blowout at the Lobero last April. Hometown heroes, pulled onto the international tour circuits, took heed of that homing instinct for our nostalgic listening pleasure.

One of the truly refreshing realizations with Toad’s show last week, on the heels of its first acoustic record foray Rings: The Acoustic Sessions, was that their particular brand of alt-folk-pop-rock mashup fares beautifully in an acoustic context. As an added side note, the dulcet swaddling tones of Daniel Walker’s accordion proved to be a fitting and magical touch to the Toad songbook. Two other non-founding musicians — drummer Carl Thomson and utility man Matt Pynn on dobro, mandolin, piano and guitar — adorned the core sound we know and love, laid out by charter members Glen Phillips, Todd Nichols and Dean Dinning.

Presented on a homey stage design, with an actual couch, overhead lamps and an illustrated decorative screen, Toad’s Lobero show functioned as a tidy retrospective narrative of the band’s story so far, in sync with the new album’s concept of revisiting older material in acoustic clothing. The setlist ranged from songs in the new category, the newish — Phillip’s quirky jewel “Transient Whales” — the ’90s classics and going all the way back to the humble beginning in 1986, “the way-way-back machine,” as Phillips put it.

A deep cut from that debut record, released on cassette in 1988 and then picked up by Columbia Records, the interestingly structured song “Rings,” citing the metaphor of tree rings as life and time markers, was a literal centerpiece of the concert. Among a generous list of shout outs to friends, family and musicians on stage was a special nod to the new album’s engineer and co-producer Sean McCue. McCue runs his studio up on Coyote Road and is a musician himself, including as a co-leader of another Santa Barbara success story from the ’90s, Summercamp.

Phillips remains the magnetic emotional epicenter of the toad sound, as his signature singer of no small talent. But Nichols and Dinning possess strong voices in the mix, as well, whether in the steady stream of tight honeycomb harmonies or occasional vocal spotlights. At the Lobero, Nichols glowed on his standard vocal feature, “Crazy Life,” while Dinning stretched out to the tune of Neil Young’s huggable classic “Harvest Moon.” 

The refreshing acoustic format even gave new life to the band’s greatest commercial hit, “All I Want,” an anthem of cheer they were reluctant to put on the record, but that became the fuel rocketing them to fame. 

Phillips can have a quirky charisma tucked into his between-song banter and introductions, as when he introduced “Good Intentions” by listing enlightened accidents through history — including the creation of bread. He offered a toast “in praise of well-intentioned mistakes,” before the band launched into the song, ironically from the soundtrack of TV’s “Friends.”

Over the years, Toad’s poignant triple-meter classic “Walk on the Ocean” can feel like Exhibit A in the theory that Toad songs were often more mature than their years of origin. Written around 1990, when Phillips was about 20, the song now feels like an autumnal meditation on the passage of time and matters beyond a pop parade. Phillips sings, “Don’t even have pictures, / just memories to hold / Grow sweeter each season / as we slowly grow old.” 

“Walk” proved a reliably affirmative finale for this locally tinged Wednesday night music club evening. Suddenly, another line from “Walk on the Ocean” comes to mind, seemingly relevant to the Toad vibe Lobero brought: “Somebody told me / that this is the place / where everything’s better / and everything’s safe.” At least for a night or two.