Bush 2011

After being a Bush fan for a long time, I finally saw them live on September 27, 2011. They killed 4th and B in San Diego, California. Here is my story.
My first college roommate turned me on to Bush’s Sixteen Stone album at San Diego State University. I was intrigued by their screechy sounds, melodies, bass guitar riffs and vocals. In fact, most of the album blew me away and I loved it. Since Chris introduced me to Bush along with some of the best music on the planet, I was stoked when I heard they returned after a 7 year hiatus. It gave me another reason to check out their new material.

I discovered Bush was going to play in San Diego a few days before the show. They played on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno on September 22 and it was awesome. Right before they performed, Jay mentioned their upcoming San Diego show and I went online and bought a ticket.

Check out their live performance of The Sound of Winter here.

Gavin Rossdale, born in London, England and married to singer Gwen Stefani, is an excellent guitarist and I find his lyrical style interesting. It’s very melodic and he effectively uses repetition and pauses. He also emphasizes certain words by holding the melody notes longer or by singing several notes in a single word. I like how he often uses vague phrases to symbolize meanings that could otherwise take sentences to describe. Sometimes I won’t know the entire meaning of the song, but I’ll grab onto a phrase that I can understand and attach meaning to.

I’m also impressed with the way Bush can bring in a sound, building it from a quiet stillness to a hurricane, then back. Similarly, they resemble Switchfoot to me (musically, not vocally…and I think it’s because they have the same influences). Both bands know how to layer sounds delicately and well. Rossdale frequently uses chord driven rhythms and adds lead guitar notes to the driving hook. Bush varies the lead guitar parts. However, even when he doesn’t layer it with much lead guitar, the chord rhythms and vocals hold up nicely with the drums and driving bass. I typically fill in the spaces of songs without much lead guitar, but there aren’t that many spaces to fill with Bush. Plus, the places that seem like spaces actually sound quite well as they are, making it difficult to add much.

Comedown may be my favorite Bush song. I love the bass line and I can play it on guitar and bass. In fact, I have many copies of the tab sheet because it’s a fun one to play and give away. It is fast and difficult for beginners, though. On their new album, The Heart of the Matter has a driving bass line with a similar feel, but it doesn’t come in at the beginning like it does in Comedown. The bass guitar certainly brings an ominous and pressing element to Bush’s sound. Sometimes, it’s turned up a little higher than the other sounds and instruments.

Playing a silver Fender Stratocaster guitar most of the night, it had one double humbucker and two single coil pickups. With it, Gavin was able to dial in all sorts of amazing sounds. However, his lead guitarist (Chris Traynor) was playing a Gibson guitar and some others and he played most of the unique, trademark sounds. His long hair and beard were daunting and he resembled Zakk Wylde or some sort of ancient, mythical warrior from Dungeon’s and Dragon’s lore. Despite his quaint appearance, his chops were flawless.

Rossdale plays some lead guitar, a lot of rhythm guitar and he sings. Before Bush’s latest album and tour, he asked the original guitarist (Nigel Pulsford) and bassist (Dave Parsons) if they wanted to make another album and tour and they said no. Therefore, Rossdale hired a new bassist to join their original drummer, Robin Goodridge, and they played very well together. Chris Traynor, mentioned above, played with Rossdale previously in Bush and in a side project band called Institute, so he simply rejoined Bush, again.

I was intrigued by Gavin Rossdale as a frontman and during the concert, you could tell there were a lot of girls in love with him. He came into the crowd once briefly, then again. During his second visit, he actually walked all around the venue, through some of the aisles, singing and dancing! Many girls were really stoked. If I were gay, I’d probably be attracted to him. He has a great voice, a lean physique, a winning smile and facial symmetry.

Dude got sweaty as hell as he played his Fender! It must have been hotter up there on stage, even though it was awfully dark the whole time. It made picture taking without a flash very difficult.

Gavin’s lyrics are pleasantly ambiguous and could mean a number of things. This is really appealing to me because it helps me relate to the lyric. It could apply to many different situations and circumstances. However, he sometimes mentions specifics like when he says, “(I’ll) go to LA and find my asshole brother.” This was an odd and rare specific. Some of his lyrics are mysterious, others are introspective. Some are about love and love lost while others are inspirational and wise.

Before the concert, I thought the song The Afterlife felt like a fun, MTV romp and Gavin chose this song to walk around and sing. It worked out quite nicely. He spent just enough time in the crowd, I thought, before his band mates could get angry or jealous.

Being from London, England, sometimes Gavin’s English accent comes through in his vocals. Usually, you can’t tell because he’s singing and it sounds like American English. However, some of his spoken vocals let his accent peak through. This is a cool “effect”, if you will.

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Gavin sang a few lines from R.E.M.’s One I Love song and it was cool. I didn’t realize until after the show that he and his band had covered the song and recorded it. I wish they would have covered the entire song, but the snippet was still good.

Bush also covered The Beatle’s Come Together. It was a pretty cool cover, but not exactly like I would have done it. I’ve played the bass line and it’s a lot of fun. However, Corey Britz, although he is an excellent bassist and played well live, he didn’t play Come Together like Paul McCartney wrote it because there is a slide and a hammer on in it that wasn’t played. It was all right and I got the message and flowed with it, but I mouthed Twist and Shout to Gavin. It would have been an epic song and I could tell his voice was a little tired because it was the first song of the encore. When John Lennon and The Beatles recorded Twist and Shout, they did it when Lennon’s voice was tired after hours of recording and it gave the classic song that special, raspy tone. I think the crowd – especially the girls – would have went nuts if they would have covered Twist and Shout.

Rossdale’s repetitious, vocal melodies remind me of Kurt Cobain’s from Nirvana. Bush is essentially a grunge band from the early 90′s, so sharing some qualities of the original, grunge bands shouldn’t be surprising. During the show, I recalled thinking again how he sounded a bit like Eddie Vedder from Pearl Jam with his guttural noises and repeated, vocal harmonies. Unlike the time I saw Pearl Jam in concert, Rossdale was more true to the album when it came to guttural harmonies and vocal sounds than Vedder was at The Forum. In fact, it seemed that Eddie preferred hearing the crowd sing those parts.

While Bush resembles sped-up Nirvana sometimes and is an amazing band, in Nirvana, Dave Grohl makes better use of his toms and plays far more detailed and interesting chops. Bush’s drums are more than serviceable, but Nirvana’s, like Alice in Chains’ are epic. Also notable, Nirvana (like Led Zeppelin, Soundgarden and many other bands) borrows notes from other keys, but Bush doesn’t seem to do this in any of their recordings.

Some of Bush’s songs are anti-violence. It was a little ironic when security threw several people out for fighting. In front of me on the floor and directly in front of the stage, there were several fights. Unfortunately, it was such a spectacle once that the band had to stop and play a quiet bridge while things were sorted out. The crowd wasn’t overly mean or violent, but there were more guys than girls there.

"There’s no sex in violence” was the ironic phrase Gavin sang after the main melee subsided. He sang it like he was telling us again and we should listen this time. Good words and they struck me differently this time.

I enjoy Bush because they introduce songs in a variety of cool ways. Sometimes their songs begin with fast electric guitar like in Machinehead. Other songs have a driving bass line, while others start with near silence. Subdued, lonely power chords in Glycerine are perfect for the song and even a little iconic like Green Day’s Time of Your Life.

The guitar picking parts are woven nicely into their songs. I also like how they bend a note from the bent position in Everything Zen. Bush is the type of band that likes to place interesting, wtf guitar sounds into songs at just the right times.

In the song Glycerine, Gavin Rossdale salutes The Beatles by mentioning strawberry fields. This is likely a reference to the English supergroup’s song Strawberry Fields Forever. Many people have speculated about the meaning of this Beatles’ song, but most people agree it’s a cryptic message about life.

Bush played The Afterlife, Comedown, Machinehead, Glycerine, Everything Zen, The Chemicals Between Us, The Sound of Winter, Little Things, The Mirror of the Signs, The Heart of the Matter, Stand Up, I Believe in You, All Night Doctors and a few other songs. They played all of the hits I wanted to hear except Red Light.

Little Things’ intro sounds a little like The Offspring’s Self Esteem intro (which was recorded and released one year earlier). Their bass lines sound somewhat like The Cure (another, epic 80′s English rock band), so I bet they’re an influence.

I loved the disarming way some of Bush’s songs began. They would gently creep in the guitar and slowly build a loud, dynamic sound! Truly great and exciting, energetic and powerful. No wonder there were fights! Some people don’t know what to do with all of this energy.

While Bush played the album version of their songs to perfection, Chris Traynor also played some unique improvisational bridges. In a couple of the songs, he went off for a bit and it was rad. For whatever reason, some guitarists are either unwilling or unable to do such a thing, but I always like it when they can and do.

I’ve always found their “breathe in/breathe out, breathe in/breathe out” reference interesting. One reason is because I have a little anxiety at times and it can effect my breathing, but if I remember to breathe deeply or normally, I relax. Yoga is fantastic because it helps focus on breathing and you are able to push your body much further if you breathe long, slowly and deeply. I suppose it’s just another one of Gavin Rossdale’s cool, ambiguous statements.

I loved Bush in concert and it was a long time coming! Thanks guys and I can’t wait to see you in San Diego, again!