Jack Johnson Closes Out North America with Ben Harper and Kelly Slater

Jack Johnson ended the North American SURFILMUSIC tour at the Hollywood Bowl, with Ben Harper, Kelly Slater and Hermanos Gutiérrez on stage Oct 10.

Ben Harper walked on with a slide guitar on Saturday, October 10, and played “Flake” with Jack Johnson, the song Harper had first played slide on for Johnson’s 2001 debut, Brushfire Fairytales. The two stayed together for Bob Marley and the Wailers’ “High Tide or Low Tide.”

The shows on October 10 and 11 closed the North American leg of the SURFILMUSIC tour, Johnson’s first extended tour since 2022. The tour carries the name of SURFILMUSIC, the soundtrack to a documentary on his path from surfer to filmmaker to musician, which premiered at SXSW on March 13, 2026. Johnson made the soundtrack with producer Mario Caldato Jr. The tour continues in Australia and New Zealand in November.

Hermanos Gutiérrez, the instrumental duo of brothers Alejandro and Estevan Gutiérrez, formed in Zurich, opened both shows. They co-scored the documentary with Johnson, and on October 10 they came back during his set for “Hold On to the Light” and a pairing of “Drink the Water” with “Symbol in My Driveway.”

Kelly Slater, the surfer, joined late in the set for Jimmy Buffett’s “A Pirate Looks at Forty.” Earlier, Johnson worked Dolly Parton’s “9 to 5” into “Banana Pancakes.”

The October 10 set ran about two hours, with surf footage on the screens behind the band. It opened with “Mudfootball” and “Sitting, Waiting, Wishing,” passed through “Bubble Toes,” “Upside Down” and “Good People,” and finished with “Angel” and “Better Together.”