The Butterfly Effect

My sister very kindly indulged me and came to see The Butterfly Effect with me last night. I first saw them at the Big Day in 2004

Image credit: The Butterfly Effect

I didn't know who they were, but they blew me away, and I bought their album. Then I saw them again at BDO 2009.

I've missed the few other occasions that have arisen to see them on their own, so I jumped on this one.

Calling All Cars and Dead Letter Circus were the supports. We missed the beginning of Calling All Cars, but caught the current single, Not Like Anybody and rather enjoyed them.

Dead Letter Circus had technical problems, I think. The vocals were... kinda missing. At least the bottom end was. It looked like we were listening to him through other people's mics. This did them a disservice, their recorded sound is fantastic. Despite the sound being less than ideal, they were a great act. Their appearance alone was amusing enough - a serious, Michael Stipe-ish lead singer, an old school 80's metal long haired drummer (shirtless of course), a scruffy looking bass player sporting a less-than-flattering headband and an ill-fitting T-shirt and finally a college-boy guitarist in a nice button up shirt and bouffant. The bass player's antics on stage were hilarious. I'd be interested to see them again when I could hear the vocals.

The Butterfly Effect came on stage to the strains of Money for Nothing, and then Clint started to sing and I fell in love a little more - with both the band and Clint. They were awesome. They had an amazing display of art behind them, some photos, some abstract imagery. I would have been fascinated if I'd been able to look anywhere other than Clint for more than a few moments. He has that indefinable stage presence - not to mention a serious talent to start off slow, build passionately, with perhaps a quiet, intimate interlude and then finish off with spectacular intensity. Again, and again.

Ahem.

They did a cover of Reckless by Australian Crawl, which confused some elements of the very diverse crowd, but it was one of those truly fantastic covers. The first verse was true to the original, but the chorus and much of the rest of the song was sped up (an improvement, frankly), except for that divine little guitar solo which was played with genuine respect.



I could do without the fake encore, but it was brief, and they came back for only two songs. It was a heap of fun being on the edge of what passed for the mosh, although it was fairly sedate. As mentioned, it was a wonderfully mixed crowd. However, to the woman in the very high stilettos and the Glomesh bag: No matter how much you might want to impress your date for the night, I really don't recommend those shoes for a dance floor concert.

It is no surprise that The Butterfly Effect rates regularly amongst people's fav live acts.