supercalifragilisticexpialidocious
The John Butler Trio with Keith Urban, Funky Tonight:
How much do these guys rock? I mean seriously, how much? (A: You have to rock pretty hard to pull off that tag.)
Here is Funky Tonight, again, this time a live recording off KFOG’s Live From The Archives 14. I love this version, love those drums…and that guitar that comes in at 1:37, and just everything:
And a few more of my favorite ‘tunes from the album’:
Gov Did Nothin’
Good Excuse
Daniella
Album: Grand National
The John Butler Trio is on tour now.
categories: music
tags: John Butler Trio, Keith Urban
posted by tandjam at 05:00 am
Great artist, great acoustic guitarist. First heard this guy a few months ago. I guess he’s made it real big in Australia, but is little known here in the U.S. I especially like the song ZEBRA, check it out on YouTube.
Wow, that’s great stuff! I’ll definitely have to check out more. Thanks for pointing me in that direction.
Well, well, well another album for my wish list. That video was amaaaazing.
Great to see JBT here. The three songs listed are my favorites on the cd, as well as “Fire In The Sky”.
Another tube video “Better Than” at Taratata. http://youtube.com/watch?v=yGG4feQODxM.
These guys do indeed rock!
Saw JBT last night at the Grove in Anaheim. Amazing! He’s not very well known, and there were probably only 200 to 300 people there. He played my three favorites and gave his all on the instrumental, “Ocean”. For three people, these guys put out an incredible amount of wonderful sounds. The performance was tight, the stand up bass player was on his game too, and I haven’t seen such drumming since the Phil Collins/Chester Thompson era. The tour continues, if you get the chance to see a fine show.
Brett Dennen opened, I was looking forward to seeing him. Alot has been said about his greatness. I didn’t like it. Every song sounded just like the previous one, and the “baby talk” vocals just didn’t work for me. Maybe an acquired taste?
Lastly, the John Butler Trio ended the show with the video posted above.
eastonwest - I have to say I am envious. JBT have already passed through our town, and we were unable to attend the show. John, Michael, and Shannon are amazing musicians. They are definitely doing what they were meant to do. About the concert…did they play “Zebra”? If you’ve seen the Zebra/Letterman video, was last night’s performance every bit as good as that one? Did they play “Fire In The Sky”? Which of your favorites did they play? My apologies for all of the questions; this time around I must live vicariously through others.
An added bonus…During this tour, JBT have teamed with Clif Bar and they are using BioDiesel in their tour bus.
Brett Dennen- I do like the song “Darlin Do Not Fear”. The first time I heard it, the music reminded me of “Julio Down In The Schoolyard”. While I like DDNF, I don’t know if I could listen to an entire cd of his music.
Glad JBT lived up to your expectations.
JBT - “Zebra” (Letterman)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d9gAqvttwq8
Brett Dennen “Ain’t No Reason”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z_R5cu-H0PQ
John Buttler Trio with Brett Dennon “Come Together”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JvyAidrbeZI
Thanks for the little concert recap, eastonwest. Did they do “Come Together” like this for an encore? I’m going to this show tomorrow and I am just so stoked about it…can’t wait!
Moonshadow, yes it was a great performance. All three of my favorites were covered (‘Zebra’, ‘Good Excuse’ and ‘Ocean’). I have seen most of the YouTube videos of ‘Ocean’, but the Grove performance surpassed all of those. John seemed to be in his own world throughout this song, and it must have lasted at least 10 minutes. It wove in and out of soft passages and hard strumming. He is a master acoustic guitarist. Leo Kottke has always been my favorite fingerstyle guitarist and I think technically, can’t be beaten. But what John Butler does with the syncopated tapping of his finger nails on the body of the guitar along with the hitting of the bridge combined with the fingerpicking, creates a sound effect I have never heard before. Shannon’s skill with that stand up bass, and Michael’s amazing percussion work makes this one of the tightest bands I’ve heard in a long time.
He did the song you mentioned and a few from ‘Grand National’, concert lasting over 90 minutes. It was a lot of fun, a very small audience. I posted above that there were at most 300 people but this probably included the staff and stage crew! Most were college-mid 20’s age. There were some of us middle aged people too, so he appeals to all. The whole show had a 60’s feel to me in that John had lit candles behind him, the long dreadlocks (of course), and his “between songs” dialogue concerning social issues of the day. Some of the audience was dancing ala “Woodstock”, and then there was that aroma of pot floating in the air (very cool, most likely why they were dancing that way!).
Have not seen JBT on anything but YouTube, so can’t compare my show with other performances. Hope he comes back to town again in the future, but sometimes a low turnout means a big blackball for the next tour. It would be great to have a DVD concert in the works. I’d buy it in a minute.
Thanks for the recap, Eastonwest. I wanted to catch JBT when they came through my area, but the only show I could get to sold out. Hoping that means they’ll be back through.
Interesting to read your comments about Dennen. I’d recently read about him in Acoustic Guitar Magazine (link: Brett Dennen article) and thought he’d be worth checking out - I liked what they said about him using African rhythms, etc. But after your comments, I checked a few things on youtube and can definitely get your points, both about his vocal style (not my thing, either) and the similarity of some of his music.
But I’m really liking what you’re saying about Butler’s playing. I’ll have to try harder next time I’m near their tour.
T &Jam- Glad you get to see these guys, but ‘Come Together’ wasn’t on their setlist. A little “heads up” also……the show started shortly after 8:00 and didn’t end until 11:30, so plan for it. Brett Dennen seemed to play….well,…forever (Sorry!), and there was an intermission for stage set up.
And thanks for the Letterman,‘Zebra’ link (had not seen that). Though great in Anaheim, the television performance of this was outstanding.
Have a fun time, Terry
P.S. Have not heard a lot of the new, ‘Grand National’, but I own ‘Sunrise Over Sea’. All of these songs come off much better live than on cd (something I rarely say).
eastonwest- “John seemed to be in his own world throughout this song, and it must have lasted at least 10 minutes. It wove in and out of soft passages and hard strumming. He is a master acoustic guitarist.” Thank you for the recap, eastonwest. For a brief moment, I was there. Sounds like there was a great vibe going on. Did you inhale?! Hehe….
All of the songs come off better live than on cd? That is very rare, indeed. I’m slapping myself on the forehead for not finding a way to get to that concert.
T&Jam- Thanks for posting the ‘Zebra’ link. I hope you’ll give ua a recap, too.
Don’t know if you all have seen the ‘Better Than’ “official” video. (John plays the banjo in this one) The last graffiti image says, “Art changes people… people change the world”
This show was kick-assssssssss!!! The Warfield looked to be full, so that’s about 2000 people. The show was two hours long. Fantastic! ‘Ocean’ was 13 minutes of mind-blowing guitar. Amazing. Beautiful. These guys are the best. The best. I taped the show, but it will take a couple of days to get the show cut up into tracks. But once I’m done, I’ll post it over in the Speakeasy if you want to listen.
T&Jam…You rock.
The show is up in the Speakeasy under ‘Other Artists”….I had so much fun listening to this show while I cut it into tracks. Please tell me what you think!
I went over to some JBT forums and found out that they had not performed ‘Take’ in two years! SF lucked out on that one! I tell you, I will never miss them in SF again, and I will travel to see them next time, too. One show is not enough! (I am kicking myself for missing them earlier this year. What was I thinking??)
“This show was kick-assssssssss!!!”
“Fantastic!”
“These guys are the best. The best”
“‘Ocean’ was 13 minutes of mind-blowing guitar”.
“Amazing”.
“Beautiful”
Told You!