Hailing from Adelaide, this singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and producer started her music career playing bass in her sister’s band, The Mercy Bell. Butterfly released her first solo album in 2004 and since then, has worked with David Bowie, touring as bass player and vocalist for Sarah MacLachlan and most recently, spending most of 2011 producing Missy Higgins’ forthcoming new album.
She’s just completed a quick east-coast tour of Australia before heading back to Nashville, where she currently resides. Butterfly has enjoyed large amounts of TV love in the States, and 5678!, the title track off her soon-to-be released album, has already aired on American television, with it’s debut in January on NBC ‘s Grey’s Anatomy spin off Private Practice.
I had the privilege of heading to her gig at the Northcote Social Club last Wednesday the 21st of March. Standing alone on a brightly lit stage with an audience and a lone microphone glaring at you would be enough to scare the breakfast burrito out of anyone. But not Butterly Boucher, who rocked her guitar, wiggled her lanky little legs and charmed the pants off everyone sitting in the room.
Butterfly is irresistibly cute in an old-fashioned kind of way. Her old-skool charm propelled this one-woman show forward with incredible might. Half way through her set, she stops to pass around a clip-board so that we could write down our email addresses to be added to her mailing list. So old-fashioned, but so cute and refreshing. She even lovingly amended the zip code to say “postcode” as to not offend any of us Aussie folk.
The thing I really like about Butterfly is the fact that she is real. Warts and all. Right in the middle of her song “Another White Dash” from her first album, Flutterby, she suddenly stops and says “what are the words again?”. She had been so busy encouraging all of us in the crowd to sing along that she had momentarily forgotten her own lyrics. Anyone else, alone on that brightly lit stage might have frozen, but not Butterfly, who continued to charm us all with her sense of humour and her incredible voice.
She did occasionally use a little magic box on the floor, which she introduced to us as “her band”, which was pre-recorded material to help back her solo efforts every now and then. I usually cringe when artists do this, likening it to karaoke, but Butterfly used it so sparingly and so well, that I didn’t mind one bit.
Her vocals never faltered once throughout her long set. They particularly shone on the loud high notes with a pelting strum of the guitar to accompany. Such power and gusto in this register…the kind that sends goosebumps straight to the back of your neck.
Half way through the set, Yeo, who was one of her support acts, jumped on stage to play the tambourine. Butterfly, in her usual slightly daggy but oh-so-charming way, laughed saying he’d been practicing this tambourine part since he was 17.
Butterfly Boucher really is a rare gem in the music world. If you get the chance to see her play live….definitely go!
I’m giving her gig 4.5 out of 5 kisses.
Written by Amy Bastow for the Kiss My Arts Show on Joy 94.9 – All opinions are mine. Copyright 2012.
I am so annoyed that I missed this! I loved her first album and have been waiting for her to return to our humble shores to see hey play and I missed it! Gah!!
Well, hopefully she’ll play again sometime soon.
Thanks for the review, except that now I am very jealous.