Toto have returned the favour after 'Africa' and covered this Weezer classic
We hope this just keeps going
The internet has been responsible for some bad things: fake news; the general collapse of democracy; Alfie Deyes and Zoella - but it’s also produced some really good stuff too: shortlist dot com, this video of chicks singing Led Zeppelin’s ‘Immigrant Song’ and Weezer covering the 1982 Toto classic ‘Africa’.
A 14-year-old Weezer fan called Mary, from Cleveland in the US, used the Twitter account @weezerafrica to badger the band for six months to cover ‘Africa’:
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And, after briefly trolling everyone by covering Toto’s ‘Rosanna’ first instead, Weezer gave the world what they wanted on 29 May, when they posted this excellently-respectful cover of an all-time banger, which pushed them into the Billboard Hot 100 for the first time since 2009.
Toto gave the cover their blessing, with guitarist Steve Lukather saying “No one is laughing harder than me - and nobody appreciates it more than all of us at Toto. But, on the other hand, this one is really hard to do. Harder than it sounds… When I first heard about the covers and campaign, I thought, ‘For sure it’s gonna be a total piss take. I could not imagine they liked us at all! I wasn’t sure at the time but their manager reassured me and said, ‘Yes!”
The love-in continued with keyboard player Steve Porcaro even joining them on stage to play the famous solo during a performance on Jimmy Kimmel Live:
But now Toto have taken the unlikely union between the two bands even further by returning the favour and covering Weezer’s 2001 hit ‘Hash Pipe’.
They played the track at the launch of their summer tour in Vancouver on Monday night with guitarist Steve Lukather explaining how they decided which song to tackle:
“We figured since we were smoking hash since before they were born, that’s the one we should do. This is our tribute to Weezer, god bless ’em.”
Unsurprisingly, given that Toto contains some of the best musicians on the planet, it’s brilliant. Take a listen below:
And here’s the original to compare and contrast:
Can we have mutual cover albums next please? Cheers.
(Image: Getty)
