Toadies Setlist

Ash’s Theme
I Come From the Water
No Deliverance
Away
I Walk a Line
ATF Theme
Long Time
Song I Hate
Happy Face
Jigsaw Girl
The Charmer
Mexican Hairless
Little Sin
Closer to You
I Call Your Name
Possum Kingdom
Damage
Normal

(with Jenni Rose from The Vandoliers)
Tyler

Encore:
I Put a Spell on You

(Screamin’ Jay Hawkins cover)
Sweetness
I Wanted to be Everywhere
Get Out of Your Head
I Burn

Tour Dates

05 Jun Denver, CO – Ogden Theatre
06 Jun Salt Lake City, UT – The Complex
07 Jun Boise, ID – Knitting Factory
09 Jun Seattle, WA – The Showbox
10 Jun Portland, OR – Roseland Theater
12 Jun San Francisco, CA – The Fillmore
13 Jun Los Angeles Downtown, CA – The Belasco
14 Jun Santa Ana, CA – Observatory
16 Jun San Diego, CA – The Observatory North Park
17 Jun Phoenix, AZ – The Van Buren
09 Jul Sherman, TX – Hot Summer Nights – Toadies
10 Jul Waco, TX – The Backyard Bar Stage And Grill
11 Jul Round Mountain, TX – Round Mountain Cider Mill
06 Aug Charleston, SC – Charleston Music Hall
07 Aug Norfolk, VA – The NorVa
08 Aug Baltimore, MD – Nevermore Hall
09 Aug Wilmington, DE – The Queen
11 Aug Allentown, PA – Archer Music Hall
13 Aug Albany, NY – Empire Live
14-16 Aug Rochester, NY – Hoochenanny Whiskey Festival 2026
15 Aug Detroit, MI – Saint Andrew’s Hall
16 Aug Columbus, OH – Newport Music Hall
19 Aug Little Rock, AR – The Hall
28 Aug Asbury Park, NJ – Stone Pony Summer Stage
17-20 Sep Louisville, KY – Louder Than Life 2026
18 Sep Columbia, MO – The Blue Note
19 Sep Indianapolis, IN – HI-FI Annex
20 Sep Louisville, KY – Louder Than Life 2026
21 Sep St Louis, MO – The Pageant
23 Sep Kansas City, MO – The Truman
24 Sep Tulsa, OK – Cain’s Ballroom
25 Sep Canyon, TX – The Lumberyard
26 Sep Santa Fe, NM – The Bridge At Sante Fe Brewing Co.
29 Sep Flagstaff, AZ – Orpheum Theater – Flagstaff
1-4 Oct Sacramento, CA – Aftershock 2026
02 Oct Las Vegas, NV – Brooklyn Bowl Las Vegas
03 Oct Ventura, CA – The Majestic Ventura Theater
04 Oct Sacramento, CA – Aftershock 2026
06 Oct Pioneertown, CA – Pappy & Harriet’s
08 Oct Tucson, AZ – Rialto Theatre
09 Oct El Paso, TX – Lowbrow Palace
10 Oct Lubbock, TX – The Garden
14 Oct Jacksonville, FL – FIVE
15 Oct Fort Lauderdale, FL – Revolution Live
16 Oct Lake Buena Vista, FL – House Of Blues Orlando
17 Oct St Petersburg, FL – Jannus Live

You know Toadies as a 90’s band, but they deserve better than that. They had a couple of radio hits from their debut record (1994’s Rubberneck), and then spent the rest of the decade in turmoil / management / label / abandoned-album-development-hell. A planned 2000 follow-up, Feeler, was tossed aside by Interscope. 2001’s Hell Below/Stars Above was solid, but the soft reception showed that they’d missed their moment to capitalize on the Nirvana-money fever-dream and instead woke up in the era of Incubus, Linkin Park, and Staind.

Rubberneck is stronger than you remember. Produced by Tom Rothrock and Rob Schnapf (who, together, produced three Elliott Smith records and Beck’s Mellow Gold) and mixed by Andy Wallace (who mixed Nirvana’s Nevermind, Helmet’s Meantime and Betty, and acted as producer, engineer, and mixer on Jeff Buckley’s Grace and Blind Melon’s Soup), it’s a high-water mark of 90’s alt-rock. “Possum Kingdom” was the life-changing jackpot radio hit, but “Away” and “Mexican Hairless” are also great. The turmoil that followed was professionally and personally difficult. Their albums since have been consistently rewarding, but infrequent.

2026’s Toadies appear today on a tour they’ve funded themselves, playing an album (The Charmer) they recorded and that they themselves own. They fill rooms with long-term fans (“since high school”, one offered to me, unprompted) and curious 90’s enthusiasts. They do it with Local H (similarly fierce, loud, genre-defiant, though also… pretty different) and the Vandoliers (similarly Texan and blues-oriented, but… well, that’s about it).

The Vandoliers are kind of joyful, actually, and that’s a great point of contrast. Tuesday was their last night on the tour with Local H and Toadies, and front-woman Jenni Rose shared that she was feeling a little emotional. She didn’t have to say anything, actually: her delight and surprise with a nearly-full First Avenue Mainroom was obvious, and while her songs are rebellious and angry, she’s an infectiously fun performer. Her dad-bod band all took their shirts off for their finale, a cover of The Proclaimers’ “500 Miles”.

But, guys: Local H. I have seen Scott-Lucas-and-a-drummer three times now, and their stage presence and energy are so impressive. For a lot of bands, something like “Bound for the Floor” would be a relatively intense performance — a show highlight. But Lucas sandwiched it between the explosive “Hands on the Bible” (uh, wow) and a chameleonic cover of TV on the Radio’s “Wolf Like Me” (uh, audacious). I don’t understand how two guys can create such sonic chaos and command complete attention in a room that big. For their closer, Doni Blair of Toadies came out to help (help them sound even huger, I mean).

Toadies took the stage over with the instrumental “Ash’s Theme” (from the new record), but Toadies leader Vaden Todd Lewis promised “lots of songs you can sing along to for the rest of the night” — starting with Rubberneck‘s “I Come from the Water”. And while 1994’s alt-rock classics ran shoulder-to-shoulder with new stuff (2026’s Charmer) and fan-service deep cuts (a song from that abandoned 2000 album Feeler, plus three from the actual 2001 followup Hell Below/Stars Above), the eras blurred together, as they frequently do. Lewis is 60 now, and the deranged edge he lent to “Possum Kingdom”‘s haunting refrain (“do you want to die?”) is a little lower and more craggy, but Toadies’ vision of hard-rock-with-dark-themes shines through.

We got 10 songs from the new album, and they sound just as urgent and compelling live as they do on the record. (That’s no coincidence: it was one of the last projects that audio vérité legend Steve Albini recorded before his 2024 death.) The new stuff is plenty weird — there are just as many crooked corners and 7/8 surprises, but the sophisticated progressions and maturity of the songwriting hide tricks. And there’s old fashioned amplification: “Get Out of Your Head” hit 109 decibels where I was standing, and caused my hearing protection to glitch on me. “Normal” got a short but earnest introduction, framing the new album as Lewis’s statement about depression, self-harm, and suicide, urging people to get help. He also assured folks to be less afraid of what treatment and recovery really look like: “I’m here today because I got help, and I’m still weird as fuck. It’s just that the ‘fuck you’ voice in my head got a little quieter.” They left the stage after “Tyler”, but you know what it means when, as the band leaves, the lights dim, and the roadies come on stage, crack open fresh beers, leaving them by newly tuned guitars. There would be more.

Toadies started their encore with a cover of “I Put a Spell on You”, welcoming Scott Lucas back. They closed with “I Burn”, a simmering, tense number built on simple acoustic guitar scrubbing. The brilliant arrangement choice Tuesday night was to add the drummers from both opening bands, effectively tripling the booming, pulmonary percussion. After that, there couldn’t possibly be more.