An Intimate Evening With Butch Walker @ Schuba’s 1-7-10

Feb 10, 2010

Man was I bummed when Butch Walker sold out four shows at Schuba’s in January, and I, the guy who lives down the street, got zero tickets! Zilch! That’s right, I thought I was having a mild heart attack, when Schuba’s website said “Sold Out!” But, you must remember, everything happens for a reason. Who would’ve thought I would be happy with this outcome, not me! Apparently Butch had Schuba’s set up seats for a more intimate performance, which left a very limited amount of tickets available for each show. This is also the reason why many of us never had a fighting chance to get these golden tickets. After Butch played his first show, he realized that the seating made this place numb, and the crowd felt dead. So, he said “Remove The Chairs,” or something like that, and they did! This opened up more seats for those of us who had stalked the website for the month of December, and low and behold, tickets became available for both the Wednesday and Thursday shows. We snagged tickets to the Thursday show, and braved the great out doors of Chicago, and it’s negative temps, to go see our man Butch. After all, this would be our first chance to see him at the friendly confines of Schuba’s, a place that we have come to love! On this night he was performing his latest album “Sycamore Meadows” in its entirety, which my wife loves. It’s not my favorite record of his, but I must admit it really sounded good. I have to be honest and say that I love him more when he is electric with a full backing band. Anyway, I initially complained about this album when it first came out, feeling like it was just too easy for Butch. I felt like he was just going through the motions, using styles of the past, sounding too much like Paul Simon, on some sort of 70’s bender. I love Paul Simon; but Butch Walker doing Paul Simon? Not so much! After many listens though, I realized that he was writing true to form , just wearing his influences on his sleeve more, during such a reflective phase of loss. For those of you who didn’t know, “Sycamore Meadows” was written during and after a time in his life when he was going through many bad events, like the loss of his house, his master recordings, and pretty much everything he owned (save for that “red bandanna” that he wears and name drops on the record), thanks to the California Wildfires. Anyway, he played the album in its entirety and threw in a Patsy Kline cover to boot. Everything sounded really good, and I’m not about to hate on an acoustic show. It’s just that sometimes during the show, it was really depressing, and kind of a “downer.” As you can gather, Butch lost a lot during this record, and playing these songs live and acoustic, made them even more heartbreaking! It was really mellow and felt like bloodletting for Butch. His voice was killer as usual and the upbeat songs were amazing! It just wasn’t the upbeat, “ENERGETIC” Butch show that we’re all used to. This is the reason I was glad I didn’t hit up all four shows, as one night proved to be just enough. There is a time and a place for such a show and this was it. The crowd was into it and Butch was up for the chore of baring his soul. “Ponce De Leon Ave.” was by far the crowd favorite, and my lovely wife hasn’t let me forget. She hasn’t stopped playing the damn song since the show, and has learned almost every lyric! She walks around singing it all hours of the day, and now I get the feeling that she’s just trying to torture me! My favorite of the night was “The 3 Kids In Brooklyn,” which I have kept on repeat, and the ‘Butch’s life in three minutes song,’ “Going Back/Going Home.” All in all I think Butch achieved what he set out to do, which is to create an intimate environment to play some of his material the original way it was written. And thankfully, he did it in one night, so I didn’t continue to hate myself for not seeing the other three shows! The sound was crystal clear, and the instrumentation was great. You could honestly hear a pin drop. Every breath he spoke, every comment he made, and every drink he took, were all accounted for.