Energetic. Raw. Feisty.
These three words tell you everything you need to know about Australian roots artist Toby on stage.
For an audience, these live shows are a deeply emotional and joyous experience. For Toby, she wears her emotions, thoughts and adventures on her sleeve as clearly as the delighted smile she sports while playing. It's that chemistry and connection – in between plenty of dancing and jumping from both sides – that makes each performance so strikingly unique and deliciously unpredictable.
Mining the passion apparent in her shows, Toby's third album, Love Underground, is filled with songs mirroring a heart and soul active in love and life. Passionate and known for her unwavering commitment to her craft Toby is willing to take the risk and be vulnerable with her thoughts and emotions committed to song.
An inability to pin down Toby's charismatic style is what draws such a wide audience from those who pick up her love of roots, folk, jazz, Latin and rock to those who link into her pop sensibilities or smooth reggae grooves, all of which magically weave their way in and out of her music.
“I just can't stick to one style of writing,” says Toby Beard as evidenced by album tracks like the loping French of Tu Es Belle, the blues-infused Run or the reggae undertones of Karma or Dancing With You. “I have been influenced by so many different styles so I just go where the song takes me. I'll tend to write a batch of songs and then not write for months. But those songs come out really naturally and quickly most of the time.”
When a family friend gave 12-year-old Toby a guitar, she just knew it was the instrument for her and soon after realised her destiny was to be on stage. Now in her mid-20's Toby has been performing live since 2003. As well as extensively touring her native Australia – playing both her own shows and joining the country's most prestigious festival line-ups – she returns regularly to Canada , Europe and the US .
In September there is another full band tour Canada and before heading off for a European tour in December, Toby opens for two sold-out Australian shows opening for the much-talked about John Mellencamp and Sheryl Crow tour.
Performance highlights so far this year include Milwaukee 's Summerfest alongside Stevie Wonder, Alicia Keys and Blondie plus Canada 's Big Time Out Festival with Michael Franti and Xavier Rudd. Supports have included everyone from Paul Kelly, the Indigo Girls, Gomez, Donavon Frankenreiter and Pete Murray.
Testament to the love in her home town of Perth , Western Australia was the sold-out show for the launch of Love Underground in May. More than 600 people packed Fremantle's Fly By Night Club to dance and sing all night with Toby and the 17 musicians which joined in the colourful party. October sees the release of the evening on DVD.
Love Underground makes a natural progression on from Toby's two other albums, Indi – Live On The West Coast and Renaissance and four EPs: Giddy Up, On Second Thoughts, Tu Es Belle and Red Rooster. The album features special guests, drummer Nicky Bomba and Ben Franz (The Waifs).
“Music – my own or someone else's – is emotionally driven for me. When I am feeling the raw emotion about something, then the songs flow. On stage you get exactly how I am feeling and that's what makes the shows stand out.
“With the songs the audience are invited into my life and they take away feelings of their own and a sense of knowing me and therefore become more open. As they open up, that energy feeds back to us and it makes us all more human.”
Keeping it real and untamed is Toby all over as she criss-crosses the globe connecting with audiences, injecting them with the passion she feels for music and turning each performance into a memorable party.
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