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The Doobie Brothers have a special night planned for their local fans.
The legendary San Jose band will perform two of its best albums — 1972’s “Toulouse Street” and 1973’s “The Captain and Me” — in their entirety on Sept. 12 at The Masonic in San Francisco.
We recently spoke with vocalist-guitarist Tom Johnston a co-founder of the Doobies. The band got started in 1970 and, within a few years, found massive success with such singles as “Listen to the Music,” “Jesus Is Just Alright” and “China Grove.”
The Visalia native, who moved to the South Bay in 1968 to attend San Jose State University, spoke about the Masonic show, his years in San Jose and the upcoming 50th anniversary of the band.
Q: Nice to chat with you again, Tom. It’s been a few years. Let’s start off on a local note and talk about your memories of living in San Jose.
A: It’s not the same place (now). It’s changed drastically. When I first came here, it was a city — but it wasn’t a big city. It was kind of a sleepy city, for lack of a better way to put it. There were a lot of orchards around and cherries. The towns weren’t all connected like they are now. Stevens Creek (Boulevard) seemed like a long ways away from where we were living.
It was all students where I lived down on 12th Street. The college was within walking distance.
San Jose, for me, was just a really neat place to be. I loved living there. It was a cool time. You could have a room for $40 a month.
Q: Yeah, rents have gone up a bit since then.
A: I didn’t have a lot. But I didn’t care. I was having a ball. I really was. I enjoyed going to school there. It was a great college. At the time, I was pursuing music, all day, everyday. It was a combo package, if you will. There were always people at the house playing. I would come home from school and find guys down in the basement blasting away.
I stayed there until to ’73, when I moved up to Marin County.
Q: The 12th Street house is where it all began for the Doobies, right?
A: It is. We use to practice down in the basement. That was home base for us.
Q: Is the house still there? Have you gone by there lately?
A: It is. I went by that house after playing at the Saratoga Mountain Winery eight years ago — at least. It’s the next day (after the show) and I was driving back home. I had my wife with me and my daughter. I just wanted to show them the house, because they had never seen it. It had been painted. But it still looked like the same place.
I was standing out front, pointing at this and pointing at that, which hopefully wasn’t going to be an alarming thing. Then a lady came out (of the house) and it turns out she was a nurse and had been at the concert the night before.
Q: Wow. What’s the chances?
A: She said, “Would you like to see the inside?” So the girls stayed outside and I went inside and looked around. It had been fixed up a little bit. I went down into the basement and went, “This has shrunk. What happened?” You remember it a certain way back then. But it hadn’t changed. Your perception changed.
Now, it’s been completely renovated. I haven’t been there (recently). I just saw an online thing, like on Zillow. It’s really been fixed up. I think it was going for $2.3 million or some ridiculous amount. I was like, “You’ve got to be kidding.”
Q: It needs like a plaque — like “The Birthplace of the Doobie Brothers.” Is there anything like that on the house?
A: Uh, no. That probably would not help them sell the house.
Q: Tell me about what you’ve got in store for fans at The Masonic on Sept. 12.
A: It’s what we did at the Beacon Theatre (in New York) last November. We are doing “Toulouse Street” and “The Captain and Me” in their entirety – with a couple of other tunes thrown in to spice it up.
First, you go through the two albums, just the way they were sequenced when they were first put out, which, in and of itself, is a weird thing to do. You are use to doing a set and you sequence the set so it flows a certain way.
Albums don’t do that. Albums do it for the person who is sitting there listening to it on their incredible stereo system back in the day or whatever. It’s not sequenced as though you were at a show. You have to get use to that.
And there’s also tunes that we had never played live — ever (before the Beacon). We had to learn songs that we wrote, but we had never played them live. We spent a lot of time getting ready for that Beacon show.
So, that’s what we are going to be doing at The Masonic. It’s interesting. It’s geared to a crowd that really knows the band. It’s a challenge for the band to do. But it’s also a lot of fun.
Q: What are you doing for the band’s 50th anniversary next year? Have a big anniversary tour in the works?
A: I’m not really sure what’s going to happen, I’m going to be honest with you. We haven’t really sat down and planned out anything.
Q: Hanging out at the 12th Street house back in the early ‘70s, did you ever feel like the Doobies would still be going strong a half century later?
A: Anybody who ever says they knew that is lying. There is no way you could possibly ever know that. The future is whatever it is, you know? There are so many things that could go wrong, right or otherwise — different paths, guys quit or leave, any number of other things.
So, here we are. Pat (Simmons, also a founding member) and I are still here. And John (McFee) has been with us since ’79. That’s the trio of the core band. And we have incredible sidemen.
We still love playing. We still love interacting with the crowds. It’s just great.