Yearnin' Learnin' (Live 1978)

This previously unreleased live album of Swiss hard-rock trio Toad surfaced in 2010 to reveal that they were often better outside the studio. Recorded in Geneva during a 1978 concert, Toad explodes right into the first song “‘Cause You’re Not” with high energy and lightning leads bolting from Vic Vergeat’s fretboard like a man possessed to party. The title-track follows turning Earth, Wind & Fire’s cosmic-funk opus “Yearnin’ Learnin’” into an off-the-chain acid-rock epic before “Makin’ You Feel” follows with an infectious strut to impart that the band’s love for heavy guitar-funk extended beyond covering other people’s material. An abridged version of the band’s biker-rock jam “Tomorrow Blue” plays with the tautness of a trio who had cultured their musicianship with years of touring. Toad gave Jimi Hendrix’s “Purple Haze” and “Red House” a harder attack prior to unleashing drummer Cosimo Lampis on a bookending five-minute solo to end like the grand finale of a fireworks display.