See John Butler Trio Live

Saw ‘em twice – at the 9:30 Club in DC, and at the Warfield in San Francisco. I have to agree with deadweightloss, the acoustics matter – the Warfield show wasn’t nearly as good as the DC show – but the guys are phenominal on stage anyways. The price of admission is worth it when John Butler does his instrumental “prayer” Ocean…

I’ve seen JBT 6 times and every time they have put on an amazing show and surpassed the previous. I have also had the opportunity to meet the band on 2 separate occasions and can’t say enough about how nice they all were.

OK, maybe we had a bad venue. We saw him (them) at the ANU in Canberra. It was noisy and smokey and the accoustics were just bad. I was disappointed, because I loved the recorded versions, and I had images of watching his fingers over the strings.

I’m doing this!!

They’re playing in London on the day I hand in my undergraduate disseratation. So I’ll be handing in my work then running to the trainstation to catch the show. Exciting!

There are some bands that create great songs but can’t entertain worth a damn: it’s like listening to their CD live.

This is definately NOT the case for JBT, who I went to see last night at the Horden Pavillion in Sydney, Australia. I can easily say they’re the best live performance I’ve ever seen!

For every song, John is handed a new guitar or instrument (banjo or bongos), they extend the solos out forever and they have a talent for building their songs up to a crescendo that results in the crowd going wild and you get that rush of ‘cool’ when you listen to these guys.

The highlight for me was probably the drum solo – the drummer Michael (I think that was his name) just went crazy for about 10 minutes – I actually had a rush of endorphins when he finished. Amazing!

Anyway, if you’re not heard them, I highly recommend their latest album, Sunrise Over Sea – and if they’re playing live go and see them!