Butch Walker concert

I had been looking forward to last night's Butch Walker concert at Bowery Ballroom for quite some time, and the man didn't disappoint. My all-time favorite concert was at Bowery almost four years ago when Butch was still fronting the Marvelous3 - he's just such a bona fide rock star; it's unbelievable that he's not worshipped the world over. But whatever, those of us who know his stuff are the lucky ones, everyone else is just missing out.

American Hi-Fi were the opening act, and they played a solid, concise set which drew mostly from their debut album and upcoming third record thankfully, as their second CD is pretty bad. Obviously they played "Flavor of the Weak," easily their most popular song and a tune I was obsessed with all of sophomore year in college. Chances are if you played Beirut with me in 2001, I drunkenly tossed this song on multiple times throughout the night. Butch came onstage to play keyboard near the end of their set, which was very cool, and Hi-Fi's last song segued right into Butch's first, so it was great to not have to wait the standard 20-30 minutes between sets.

Butch started out with "Don't Move," "Maybe It's Just Me," "#1 Summer Jam" and "Mixtape," all songs off his new record, "Letters," dropping August 24th, with the Hi-Fi backing him (lead singer Stacy Jones played the drums, hearkening back to how he used to earn his paycheck). Hi-Fi left the stage for a bit and it was solo time with Butch, which meant we got an acoustic version of crowd-pleaser "Every Monday" and a keyboard-fueled, guitarless rendition of the classic "Cigarette Lighter Love Song." For the encore Butch and Hi-Fi played two more songs off the new record and finished with Marvelous3's biggest hit, "Freak of the Week," as Stacy came out from behind the drum kit to strap on an axe and sing backup vocals.

But the fun didn't quite end there, kids. After Hi-Fi finally left the stage for good, Butch unplugged his acoustic and sat down on the stage, strumming and singing with zero amplification. I've never seen anything like this at a concert before, but Butch then got up, walked into the audience, sat down indian-style smack in the middle of Bowery Ballroom and the whole crowd sat down around him, as Butch launched into a beautiful rendition of "Take Tomorrow," the closing song off his first solo record, "Left of Self-Centered," and everyone in the room sang every word, but not too loudly so as to not overtake Butch. It was just a touching, intimate way for Butch to show how much he appreciated his fans, and there are not many artists that could just stroll into the audience and have everyone's rapt attention without creating some kind of mob scene. It was surreal.