The Machine at Toad's

The cover band is a pretty funny concept when you think about it. The more you can play a song like the original band, the more audience approval you get. Depending on what band you cover and how long it's been since they've been on tour, you can actually make some good money playing other people's songs. Also, everyone knows that any good cover band has to know every song by the band they cover.

I've seen The Machine twice now, and they're a pretty good Pink Floyd cover band - I mean, tribute band. They're not Australian Pink Floyd with the crazy show recreations, and they don't always sound exactly like Pink Floyd (though sometimes they do), but they really fill that live music void for Floyd fans. At Toad's Place on Saturday night they played "The Wall" and then a pretty long encore of additional songs. It was pretty cool, and it was also cool that we knew what was going down because they played some of "The Wall" then let us know they were going on break then coming back to play the rest and then maybe playing some more.

They started around 9 and ended just after midnight because Toad's Place was turning into a night club for two hours. Tickets were $15, which wasn't bad, and I guess the "Gold Circle" up front was $30. I think people were getting more into The Machine's set when I saw them at The Webster in Hartford, but the seating setup at Toad's could have been to blame on Saturday. That was the first time I ever saw those chairs at Toad's, and it was kind of weird. Anyway, there were definitely people into it, even though most were sitting. Even though you could tell the band could have played for at least two more hours, I was glad it ended after three because it was just enough. A little more would have been too much - like that time Shakedown played until 2 a.m. That was cool for the big fans, but for those of us who got to the show when they started playing (which is later than doors), it got tiring.

My old band director used to tell us that his band director told him to always make the audience leave wanting more. People were definitely getting tired toward the end of The Machine's set, and a good chunk of the people up front had left already. Any more than three hours, and they would have gone way too far past that point.