30 Years of 'John Hiatt Comes Alive At Budokan'
Celebrating the 30th anniversary of John Hiatt's first official live album with an expanded excerpt from "Something Wild," Chapter 14 of 'Have a Little Faith: The John Hiatt Story.'
To celebrate the 30th anniversary of John Hiatt’s first official live album, Hiatt Comes Alive At Budokan?, below is an expanded excerpt from “Something Wild,” Chapter 14 of Have a Little Faith: The John Hiatt Story. (Click here to purchase your very own copy of the book, or find it wherever you prefer to shop. Available in hardback, paperback, and also as an e-book and audiobook.)
Hiatt Comes Alive … At Budokan?
With Perfectly Good Guitar in the can, a tour was naturally the next step. Now Hiatt could take his young band of rockers on the road and let loose that middle-aged craziness Jerry Lee Lewis sang about years ago but on the stage instead of a barstool or some stranger’s bed. Michael Ward, along with bassist Davey Faragher and drummer Michael Urbano, were christened the Guilty Dogs for the tour. They traveled throughout the United States and recorded the shows for what became Hiatt’s first live album, the cheekily titled Hiatt Comes Alive at Budokan?, again produced by Matt Wallace.
“I think I owed A&M one more record,” John recalls. “And they said, ‘We’ll take a live record if that’s what you want to do.’ But also I liked the band, and I thought it would be fun to record.”
It was the right album to do at the right time. Ward’s ferocious guitar was the perfectly good foil to Hiatt’s steady electric and acoustic rhythm lines while Faragher and Urbano propelled the combo like a steam train at full power. Naturally, the Perfectly Good Guitar tracks rocked dutifully, while at the same time, Hiatt’s older tracks got a strong shot of adrenaline without sacrificing their original intent. “Memphis in the Meantime” is a prime example of how the Guilty Dogs took one of the most beloved tracks from Bring the Family and made it into something new while respecting Jim Keltner's untouchable and inimitable badass groove of the original.
Budokan does rock mightily, but it’s at its most jaw-dropping during its quieter moments. The ballads hit harder in the gut than their studio counterparts. In fact, the version of “Icy Blue Heart” included here is definitive.
Hiatt was the type of artist who felt perfectly at home in either an electric or acoustic setting, and his live shows with the Guilty Dogs reflected that. Throughout the tour, he would often open his shows alone with an “unplugged” version of one of his deeper cuts. Budokan, for instance, begins with an intimate, stirring take on the Stolen Moments track “Through Your Hands,” recorded in Portland, Maine.
These live versions—both the ballads and the rockers—find Hiatt in full-on front-man mode. He feeds off the energy of his young band, giving them a run for their money as he howls, hollers, croons, soothes, screams, and shouts throughout the set. The best thing about Budokan is the jarring, yet completely sensical, dynamics. The version here of “Real Fine Love,” for example, has the band quieting down to a whisper as Hiatt delivers the final verse in a way that reflects the joyous calm his loving family brings him, which makes the buildup back to the chorus all the more celebratory.
Another standout on Budokan is the extended take on “Your Dad Did.” Again, taking advantage of the whiplash dynamics made available to him by the Guilty Dogs, Hiatt wrenches every bit of emotion—from annoyance, frustration, and cynicism, to finally acceptance—from the lyric as the sound of pent-up suburban rage is let loose all around him. “‘Your Dad Did’ rocks much harder than my original,” Hiatt admitted. “I may not be so precious about it as I was.”
Budokan also boasted the first appearance of Hiatt’s own version of his song “Angel Eyes” (written with Fred Koller) which had been a top ten hit for the Jeff Healey Band in 1988.
“We recorded that on ADATs,” John says. “We had twenty-four tracks of ADAT out on the road with us. I remember Jeffrey Scornavacca, our front-of-house guy, he would hook it up every night. We recorded every show, and Michael Urbano picked the tracks. He offered to go through all the tracks and call the best takes.” The task earned Urbano an associate producer credit under Matt Wallace.
Live at the Hiatt
I’m pretty sure I got my copy of Live at the Hiatt back when I was a member of Hiatt’s fan club “In the John,” or it could have come to the radio station. Can’t remember, to be honest. Either way, it was a promo-only release that came out a few months before Budokan recorded on the same tour and with the same lineup. The performances on Live at the Hiatt (recorded at a date in London on October 30, 1993) surpass what A&M released on the “official” live album.
Unlike Budokan, it’s a document of one show on one night. The setlist is different in places as well. Although there’s no “Real Fine Love” or “Your Dad Did,” it does include the Riding With the King opener “I Don’t Even Try,” a blistering “When You Hold Me Tight,” a far superior version of “Feels Like Rain,” and an extended “Slow Turning” with a hilarious improv during the breakdown.
In 2006, Live at the Hiatt was given a wide release under the moniker, Performance Classics: Live at the Hiatt (Live in London).
Between Live at the Hiatt, Hiatt Comes Alive At Budokan, and the 2005 release, Live From Austin, TX (which documents the Guilty Dogs’ appearance on Austin City Limits), the 1993-94 lineup is the most widely and thoroughly commercially documented of all of Hiatt’s tours.
Hiatt Comes Alive At Budokan was Hiatt’s last album with A&M, the label where he’d seen his most success as an artist through the past seven years and over four studio albums. The next stop on John Hiatt’s rock ’n’ roll journey would find him in the house that Nat built.
That led to the album Walk On, which celebrates its 30th anniversary in October of 2025. You can read all about that in the chapter, “Nashville Queens.”
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If anyone who has taken the time to read today’s offering from Mr. Elliot, if you have not read his book on John Hiatt, I highly recommend it. It was very thorough and a great book to read regarding one of my all-time favorites.
I saw Hiatt many times when I lived in Napa Valley. He once did a radio id for the Santa Rosa FM station KVRE, something about “shootin’ skunks and chasin’ steelheads.” I think his mother-in-law lived there. Saw him at the Cotati Cabaret in ‘83, close enough to shake hands, and my good friend kept saying “Jesus, that guy plays just like Ry Cooder!” I said: “Richie, THAT IS FUCKING RY COODER!” He said: “Fuck, now I can die a happy man.”