Buy the ticket, take the ride. ~Hunter S. Thompson
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| Brian Bethke at Acoustic Cafe |
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| Written by John Abbott | |||
| Wednesday, 02 December 2009 05:28 | |||
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Back from his US tour, Brian Bethke did a show of old favorites, and even older unreleased songs written over the past fifteen years, as well as a few new tracks. It was great hearing lots of music I have never heard him sing before. It was also great to hear his new stuff. The Acoustic Cafe was filled when we walked in. We slid into the final empty booth.
Acoustic Cafe is a nice venue. The audience noise always seems fairly low. With Brian's setup it seemed like the sound was a little fuzzy and boomy on the louder moments. Not bad enough to complain about, but a little distracting. The audience was tuned in by the time Brian took the stage. The front tables were filled with tables of fans who knew the lyrics of the songs better than Brian did. It was all the makings of a good show and Brian didn't disappoint. For me, Brian is particularly enjoyable to hear live. I like it so much better than his recorded work. I understand that as a musician, you get sick of your own stuff. I mean, how many times have one of the Van Zants played Sweet Home Alabama since 1973? Or, maybe he feels it is the perceived value of getting multiple musicians on one plastic disk. Brian likes to change up his recorded works by bringing in other artists, background vocalists and a lot of other things. But, I feel that gets in the way of what I really like, which is Brian's voice and his guitar. And don't take this the wrong way. We have never sealed a CD back up and posted it back to Osseo Wisconsin. Grousing and bitching though I am, Brian Bethke's two CDs get about as much or more time than most of the rest music I have in the house. But I like his music best when it is just him. Raw, clean, unprocessed. I think he is a great musician. Adobe Flash Player not installed or older than 8.0.22!  I was really pleased with his new song The River, and captured in the video. The song is now up on Brian's Myspace page with far superior audio than I was able to capture on my Ebay special handy cam. This new song, dedicated to his mother who, sadly, has breast cancer. The proceeds of the song will be donated to breast cancer research. It is available for download at http://www.undergroundmusix.com/artiste/index.php?id=4451 His Myspace page says this song will be available soon on iTunes as well.
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| Last Updated on Wednesday, 02 December 2009 17:51 |
The warmup for Brian was the Matthew Tiller Band. Folk music. I wasn't a huge fan but it was ok. One thing that struck me was toward the end of their set, it might have even been the last song, they announced they were going to have a sing-along. I looked over the crowd, as they were drinking their coffees and talking to their friends maybe only half aware there even was live music. I said to myself, "no way" but you know what? It worked. It was a very well done folk classic, You Are My Sunshine and the band got audience buy-in. It went over very well and was a fun time.
