If you’re currently living in Stiles, Morse, or Trumbull, you know this place. If you’ve gone every Wednesday night in hopes of being named one of their “scholars,” you know this place. If you’re simply walking on York St, you know this place. Nestled between Donut Crazy and Mory’s (another iconic Yale building) and standing out with its bright green awning featuring a variety of music genres is the one and only Toad’s Place.
Waterparks
I was first introduced to Toad’s Place when a band that I had recently started listening to - Waterparks - announced it as one of their stops on their North American tour. It was the summer before my first semester at Yale when I purchased the tickets and if you ask any of my friends, I did what I usually do when I am hoping to meet new people…DM them on Instagram. After scrolling through the comment section of the band’s Instagram page, I found someone else who went to Yale and was planning on going to the concert. I sent her a message about possibly going together and flash forward two and a half years later, Olivia is now one of my closest friends and my forever concert buddy. More than that, Toad’s Place has become Olivia and I’s friendaversary tradition and has been a place I have held dear to my musical heart.
Bad Suns
Every semester, Olivia and I have managed to attend a concert at Toad’s Place (we even attended a play together when we were both studying abroad in the UK). My first semester here we attended the Waterparks concert and then, that following spring we attended a show for the band Bad Suns and once again, had an absolute blast. A place like Toad’s, I believe, really captures the magic of New Haven. Every concert I have attended at Toad’s has been full of fellow Yale students, students from surrounding universities, local New Haveners, and people from out of town. It’s very easy to feel like you’re in a bubble - the “Yale bubble” - when you live, eat, and study all in the same place. Toad’s to me has been my small little escape from Yale life. It has been a place that brings people together through their shared love of the same band or artist in the same way it brought Olivia and I together as friends.
Declan McKenna
The most recent concert I attended at Toad’s - a show for the artist Declan McKenna - was my last Toad’s Place concert since I’ll be graduating this December. Walking into the dimly lit room with Olivia by my side took me back to that very first Waterparks concert. It was incredibly bittersweet dancing and singing along with Olivia, knowing that this will be the last time in a good while that we’re at a concert together. It was sad knowing that it’ll be a good while until I’m back at Toad’s. Although I mentioned in my previous blog that this semester is my semester of “lasts,” upon reflecting on the places and people I’ll miss the most, I’ve realized that this semester in many ways mimics my first one: I’m trying my absolute best to live in the moment and take in the experiences and memories I am living in.
Honorable Non-Toad’s Concerts in Connecticut
