No matter how many times I see them do it, I’m still impressed every time Mad Toast Live hosts Mary Gaines and Chris Wagoner pick up their instruments and play along with their guests. In the first hour they chose only a couple tracks on which to accompany Andrew Belle and Allen Stone, but during the second hour they played on nearly every one of Marty Finkel’s tunes. The second biggest snow storm of the winter kept most of their potential audience at home, resulting in an audience that consisted of Finkel’s family and me. You never would have guessed they were playing for a limited audience, either from the quality of the performance or the volume of the applause following. The folks who download the podcast are going to think the room was full.
As it should be. In a city full of singer-songwriters, Finkel is one of Madison’s under recognized talents. Granted he doesn’t go out of his way to change that perception, playing only a handful of shows a year. The Mad Toast Live experience is different than a regular gig, there’s always as much talking about music as there is playing it. Gaines and Wagoner are always curious to know about their guests’ songwriting habits, their influences, how they got started and whether they have a favorite chord. To the less gregarious this can be a daunting experience, but Finkel handled it all with a smile. I’ve seen him play many shows, solo and with a band, but this may have been even better. Wagoner wondered early in the hour how it was possible that they hadn’t met before, and by the end was wondering when they could do it again. His mandolin was a perfect accompaniment to the songs from the Good Life, Finkel’s “rockabilly” album, while Gaines’ cello lent just the right amount of low end. The graceful “Hallelujah” was absolutely beautiful with the strings, and poppier tunes like “Annabelle Lee” and “Come On, Come On” sounded great in the Brink’s space.
I’d expected Finkel to be the first guest on the show. Instead the order had been switched to allow Belle and Stone to get back on the road as early as possible. The two are on an ambitious college tour and were heading to Michigan after they finished here. I hadn’t heard of either of them before tonight, but that may be because I haven’t been listening. Andrew Belle won an MTV award last year for “Breakout Chicago Artist” and his music has been featured on a number of TV shows- Ghost Whisperer, 90210, The Real World, and Keeping Up With the Kardashians- though granted I’ve never actually seen any of those. But I’m convinced that if I had heard him I would have remembered. His voice hovers somewhere between David Gray and Chris Martin, and it is strikingly gorgeous. From opening song “All the Pretty Lights” to the last “I’ll Be Your Breeze” (the star of all those TV shows), he had me hooked. Though I’ll admit that if he ever gets really famous I’ll probably deny ever liking him.
Where Belle occasionally comes close to the kind of singer songwriter I dislike, the Jack Johnsons and John Mayers, Stone is fully in that camp. His backing vocals on Belle’s songs sounded great, but his own songs were full of the vocal tricks that make me switch radio stations. His Joe Cocker-isms, made him difficult to watch, while making me wish he would just stand still, something the podcast listeners won’t have to worry about. So for the night, I liked two out of three, which as they say, ain’t bad.
Andrew Belle & Allan Stone
Marty Finkel
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