Jon Toogood @ Mojos
Sunday, March 4, 2018
It wasn’t sold out at Mojo’s on Sunday night for Jon Toogood’s acoustic set but it was cosy. Everyone that was there was a big fan of Shihad and there was a buzz of excitement rippling round the venue so from the moment that Toogood walked out on stage, he had everyone’s undivided attention.
The first song was from their latest album, FVEY – Think You’re So Free is his personal favourite. He also played Run from a time in their life where they changed their name to Pacifier (which he loves to blame on the other three…) and Australian Crawl’s Reckless.
Toogood had the room in stitches as he went on to tell us a story about how the ‘Fish’ album was probably not the best one to move to Australia on with their still thick NZ accents and then realised that he had stuffed up the order of his own setlist. “Fuck it. I’ll continue with Fish,” he said and sung Missionary – a song about being woken up by missionaries, and not a sexual position.
He also played The Brightest Star (General Electric), a cover of Bliss by Th’ Dudes, a song from a new New Zealand artist Aldous Harding called Horizon that “blew his tits off” when he first heard her and finished the first set with a song from The Verve – Lucky Man.
Set two was more about the covers although he did start with Pacifier and the whole room sung along loudly with him. “Aw yeah! You sound like you want a singalong!” as he continued with Dragon’s Rain. He also played Split Enz – I Got You before saying to us, “Now I’m doing dead people.”
He started with David Bowie’s Ziggy Stardust and Suffragette City before singing Tom Petty’s I Won’t Back Down and Free Fallin’. He brought it around full circle with Home Again and regaled us with a story about how he would change the first line to “put your cock back in your undies” or “put your cat out for the winter.” Of course, everyone sung the first line.
Toogood then told us a story about how he had agreed to interview Lemmy from Motorhead when they were first starting out. Motorhead had just had a punch up on stage – a really ugly fight and then he was led back stage to do the interview. The whole time he was thinking that it really was the wrong time to do an interview. The producer then sent the rest of Motorhead out of the room with Lemmy just glaring at her for what felt like an eternity, before saying “you rude fucking bitch. How dare you tell my band to get out of their own dressing room!”
Toogood sung Ace of Spades and, for what has become a usual event at his acoustic gigs, he broke a string half way through. Luckily, he had prepared for it this time and had a spare guitar. “I usually go off stage here but I can’t be fucked. There is no encore. Let’s all sing this together and cover up how awful it sounds on acoustic guitar” he told us for My Mind’s Sedate.
The thing about acoustic sets is that it attracts the true fans that absolutely love the band and Sunday night was no different. Toogood once again showed everyone there just how talented he is and just how funny he can be. He’s a true showman and when you are watching him, he makes you feel like you are sitting in a room surrounded by friends and having a chat and singalong. He loves what he does so much and is more than happy to have a chat after the show, take pictures with the fans and ensures that every single person there leaves with a smile on their face. There was never a dull moment.
Words and photos by
KAREN LOWE
