JOHN BUTLER TRIO

WITH OPENERS LEE HARVEY OSMOND AT L'ASTRAL FEB 08 2010

"People think I get most of my influences from blues and from folk
and that's the last place I usually get them from." -John Butler

BY SHANNON H. MYERS

First published in The Concordian student newspaper
18 Feb 2010
Pg ?

"I'm not a good public speaker," admitted John Butler in a statement many fans would argue. Butler is known for being outspoken on social issues surrounding the environment and human rights. He consistently pays great respect to his Australian aboriginal roots, observed in both the colours of the aboriginal flag hanging from his mic stand and the thanking of the traditional owners of the land when he first took the stage at L'Astral last Monday night. For a man who speaks so fluidly, and with such a wise social awareness, Butler has begun to let his music do the talking.

“I used to talk to a point where it was too much. I'm realizing that as I get older as a musician (that) what I say best is through my music. My basic mission is to leave the room and the city that I've entered vibrating at a higher level than before I entered it.”

Opening act Lee Harvey Osmond

This reflects a maturity that coincides with changes Butler has undergone while recording April Uprising. The John Butler Trio's 5th studio album is named after the 1875 revolution in Bulgaria, in which Butler's great great grandfather fought. The title of the album's first track, “Revolution,” aptly captures a sentiment that is not only currently circulating in the world of music with examples from Muse and Coldplay, but that also has a more intimate connection to the songwriter. Around the start of this album, Butler began to shed the layers of a cocoon he didn't realize he was in. He cut his dreads, changed his songwriting style, and welcomed a baby boy into the world. This gave cause for soul searching as he questioned what it meant to be a man.

“All man represented to me was war, destruction, machoism, sexism, and things like that. I realized I was raising this young boy who's going to become a man and I despised men. It was a really profound moment.”

It took embracing manhood in a way that he could understand, a respectful and empowering way, to come to terms with his gender, and in doing so, truly become a man himself, “as opposed to just a young man, or a man in denial.”

Butler reinvented the John Butler Trio again, after jamming with good friend and brother-and-law, Nicky Bomba. Bomba was the principle percussionist for Sunrise Over Sea but has never before toured in the Trio.

“All of a sudden I realized I was changing band members and thought I should keep going with that feeling of rebirth and found Byron (Luiters). It changed my band completely. I wasn't expecting to do that, it just felt like the right thing to do.”

Luiters adds a unique flare with his traditionally trained skill on the didgeridoo. He treated the audience to a display of circular breathing; a technique that enables the musician to breath in through the nose while blowing out through the mouth simultaneously. His and Bomba's presence added a fresh energy to the stage that, skill and stage presence aside, was akin to that of a band's first live set.

Before JBT took the stage, Ontario openers Lee Harvey Osmond regaled the crowd with their crooning, soulful opening act that included a cover of Colin James' “Freedom.” The gritty acoustic blues quintet played as a duo, but the sound was still full and had a suitable raw feeling that's lacking in their recorded work. They ripped that stage up good for a couple of self-proclaimed old guys.

Loving fans watch on

Butler was right about letting the music do the talking, and talk it did. His fingers told stories, and those stories were epics, spiralling into semi-rehearsed but always semi-improvised jams and solos. Every song was extended past its original framework, with new bridges that would take the melody to a completely new, completely harmonic place. In numbers, the set would be described as over two hours. However, it was an experiential time span that existed above what numbers can describe. The length of any one of Butler's indefinite instrumentals, I know not. Nor could I tell you the number of encores he performed, which nearly blended themselves into a second performance. What I do know is that something changed from the time the band took the stage to when they did their final bow. Being part of an entire audience singing in acapella the “Peaches & Cream” refrain "All I know is all I know and I love you, yeah I love you" is an experience unlike any other. That is what a John Butler Trio performance is about: living in the present, appreciating the moment, and feeling those good vibrations.