Anti-Folk has a band now: Jon Bunting at the Red Heron

If you just clicked on this article and you don’t know who Jon Bunting is, stop. Don’t you dare make any assumptions because you saw the picture of a dude in a beanie playing acoustic guitar. Go listen to his music now. 

To say that Jon Bunting is quickly becoming a favorite among the staff of the Berkeley B-Side would probably be an understatement. I’m pretty sure this is our third article that he features in this year alone, and for good reason. He’s the whole package: catchy numbers you can sing along to, stage banter that is guaranteed to make you chuckle, and generally one of the friendliest people I’ve met through the Berkeley music scene. Of course, I couldn’t tell him that to his face because he’s reluctant to have praise heaped on him, so here we are. 

On Tuesday, Jon unveiled his first full-band show at the Red Heron, a studio and performance space nestled in Oakland’s Chinatown district. Accompanied by keys and drums, his songs jumped out at a higher volume and fuller depth than his standard solo acoustic show. Now, don’t take that as a diss on his solo acoustic shows; he’s one of the few people I’ve seen that can squeeze every ounce of charm and warmth out of the solo, singer-songwriter medium. But the band is dope too. 

Anyone in the audience that hadn’t heard cuts like “Redingtin” and “Dignity” was singing along by the end of the night. Between every song there was banter on par with most stand-up comedy, that was obviously spontaneous but without any of the awkwardness that sometimes comes when an artist gets to talking. 

If you haven’t seen Jon live yet, you should. To be honest, you missed your chance on Tuesday. He killed it. 

(Listen to this:)

Written by Kieran Zimmer