The Butterfly Effect @ theARENA (15/07/06)

Mon 17th Jul, 2006 in Gig Reviews

Off the back of  their latest album, Imago, produced by the very well known US producer/recorder Joe Barrisi (Melvins/Fu Manchu/Queens of the Stone Age/TOOL), The Butterfly Effect have once again shown why they sell out shows. These boys are the bulls that will charge Australian Rock back onto the charts!

What can I say about a band that left me speechless on Saturday night? A man of many words was left standing there, mouth ajar but with a smirk that would have made the joker envious.

This Brisbane-based band hit the Arena like a fighter plane hitting the sound barrier, Clint Boge’s voice has a haunting sound that emanates through each song, giving this band a definitive punch and if anything their sound has matured since their first album.

You can see after years of touring The Butterfly Effect have honed their skills and have come out of their touring cocoon, wings ablaze again. Saying Clint has a stage presence is an understatement – behind him are three of the country’s best musicians; with this band, ‘having an off night’ is not in their vocabulary. From hiding behind speaker stacks using that melodic voice box of his, to 10 000 watts of light radiating behind him over the crowd, the boys owned the Arena for a good hour and a half. Praise is all that can be given about the Butterfly Effect on this night, I might be biased to local bands, it might have been the scotch, but I now can’t wait to see them again.

Songs like ’Consequence’ and the title track ‘Imago’ (another highlight was ‘Beautiful Mine’) were unsupassed on the night, while looking around at all the crowd singing and enjoying themselves made the evening that little bit more special. Other highlights were ‘Begins Here’, ‘Aisles of White’ and ‘A Slow Descent’.  It surprises me that such a heavy sounding band can still keep each track separate and dissimilar from any other, some bands find this difficult, the Butterfly Effect do it with ease. With Ben Hall banging the skins on the drums, Kurt Goedhart twisting out the sounds on his axe and Glenn Esmond keeping it all alive with his bass, it was left up to Clint to take it up one more step. Each member of the band kept his own and raised the bar, it made the night that much more enjoyable – there was no amount of lacklustre slides at all from any of the band, at anytime.

So the Arena sold out and I can see why, we had three of Brisbane’s finest playing at the Arena, but in light of all the people, the smiling faces gave almost a candy complexion to a hard rock coated band.

I must give an honourable mention to Repeat Offender- watch out for these guys. I like them, I like them a lot.

Vote one The Butterfly Effect now.

End Transmission.