Many things change in a person over the course of three decades. But when it comes to the music of the Liverpool alternative-rockers Echo & The Bunnymen, it seems like nothing’s changed, even after an illustrious 36 year career.
With his trademark shades and mop of unkempt hair, the Bunnymen’s charismatic frontman Ian McCulloch casually walked on stage at sold-out The Orpheum Theatre to a rousing welcome. While the music has remained timeless, many of the fans have aged right along with that of McCulloch and the only other original member in the band, guitarist Will Sergeant, but have also attracted new, younger fans along the way.
Throughout the night, McCulloch and company paid tribute to some of the musical greats with a series of medleys that included snippets from The Doors (“Roadhouse Blues”), Lou Reed (“Walk On the Wild Side”), James Brown (“Sex Machine”), Nat King Cole (“When I Fall in Love”) and Wilson Picket (“In the Midnight Hour”). However, the band did play one full cover, “People Are Strange” by The Doors, a song they recorded for the 1987 hit movie The Lost Boys.
While the medleys were well done and enjoyable, it was the Bunnymen’s own songs that invigorated the crowd and got them on their feet. After opening the night with the title track off their latest album Meteorites, the band broke out a couple deep-cuts with “Rescue” off their 1980 debut Crocodiles, which then segued into “Broke My Neck,” a B-side track from the 1981 single “A Promise.”
But it was the band’s big hits—and there are plenty—that got the warmest response. If anyone was sitting leading up to “Bedbugs and Ballyhoo,” they quickly popped to their feet like a pogo stick at the first note played of the song. That was followed by another fan-favorite, “Seven Seas,” which kept the fans dancing and singing along id-way through the show.
The Bunnymen ended the set with a trifecta of their greatest hits that featured Sergeant’s unmistakable guitar lines on “Bring On the Dancing Horses” and “The Killing Moon,” followed by another classic, “The Cutter.” The band saved a couple of their other signature songs, “Lips Like Sugar” and “Ocean Rain,” as part of their two encores.
The new music may not have been as familiar to the crowd as the classics from the 1980’s, but it did carry much of the same sound and style as the band’s early work. Rather than come across as sounding like a song recorded today, tacks like “Holy Moses” and “Constantinople” feel and sound more like something you’d find off one of the band’s early albums.
Photos by Scott Sheff
