Toad is a small pub in Porter Square, Cambridge, MA, where there's live music for free every night. And beer is cheap too. To sum it up, it's a cool place.
That's where I failed to see Meghan Toohey a few weeks earlier. Meghan Toohey is playing at Toad every Tuesday in August with some cool friends, so I couldn't miss that (even though I missed the first show last week...) after having seen her excellent performance at Club Passim in July.
On a personal note that nobody cares about (but that's something I would to keep track of), I gave Meghan one of the photos I took at Club Passim since she wanted them, and she was apparently happy about it, so I'll give her the rest soon.
I had never heard of Deb Talan, but that was actually a big mistake, because she kicks ass.
She played alone on the stage with her folk guitar, but she didn't play very long (4 or 5 songs for about 20 minutes). Ken Schopf joined her on the drums for her last song.
On a side note, I listened to her album Something Burning and it's pretty good.
On the other hand, I had heard from Erin McKeown but had never heard her music.
She also played alone, and most of the people had come to see her, since everybody started screaming when she started playing. She plays some pretty good music, but I must say that I enjoyed her set less than Deb Talan's. Well, you can't like everybody's music.
She played for about 45 minutes.
Some people left after Erin McKeown's set. Well, Meghan Toohey isn't as known as Erin McKeown yet, I guess.
Meghan Toohey was there with her band (Austin Nevins on the guitar, Dimitri Fane on the bass and Ken Schopf on the drums).
They played two sets of about 40 minutes each (I have a picture of the set list): as Meghan explained it, the first one was a serious one, and the second one was more fun, with a lot of covers (Kiss by Prince, Sweet Emotion by Aerosmith, etc). Meghan and her band were really having fun, and the two sets were simply great. She had a few problems with one of her pedals but changing the battery fixed it.
During the second set, they were joined twice by Deb Talan and Erin McKeown as vocalists. They closed the evening with a cover of Time After Time by Cindy Lauper, with Austin and Erin on the guitar who both did a great performance, Deb and Meghan singing.
That was really a great show, and I am sure that next week will be great too. I can't wait until Meghan releases her two debut albums.