Echo and Most of the Bunnymen

There's always a nagging feeling at the pit of my stomach whenever I attend a show by a band that has proven to be unseeable for years. Is it just too late? Will the songs the stirred my soul at age 20 seem stupid 19 years later? Has the band had it?

Luckly, the answer was a resounding no for all three questions when Echo and the Bunnymen played Dallas for the first time in forever at the Gypsy Tea Room on June 16.

Echo is one of those bands that really never went away for most of us. Much like their post-punk compatriots The Psychedelic Furs, Echo's songs regularly get played on 80's oriented radio stations (well, mostly on the satellite radio stations, and then usually it's only the band's surprise hit "Lips Like Sugar" that gets any attention). Just hearing them prompts regret that I never saw the band that got me wearing black clothes for the first time. By the time the Liverpool quartet hit it big in the U.S. in 1987 with their outstanding self-titled album, the band didn't tour near anywhere close to where I lived. Then singer Ian McCulloch leaves for a solo career in 1988 and drummer Pete De Freitas dies in a motorcycle wreck in 1989. And my Echo fix looked like it would be permanently unsated.

But the band is back, mostly, with McCulloch and lead guitarist Will Sergeant heading up the group as two surviving members of the four-piece group which has now expanded to six members. Their current release Siberia is easily their best effort since 1984's Ocean Rain.

McCulloch and Sergeant took the stage at Gypsy sporting their original 80's haircuts. And despite suffering from a cold, McCulloch still sounded strong as he ran through the highlights of the band's 25 years worth of songs. For a solid hour and forty minutes, the band gave the audience "The Cutter" "Rescue" "The Killing Moon" "Seven Seas" an especially exciting and raw version of "Do It Clean." And, yes, they played "Lips Like Sugar" which got the biggest reaction out of the audience. Because Echo has a permanent place in the hearts of suburban dwellers who long for their college days, they're almost forced to stick to an 80's-heavy set list. That's unfortunate when their new release is so good. They did play a new song "Stormy Weather" which hopefully encourages the audience to buy the band's very mature new release. Even so, I found myself rooting for them to play "Bedbugs and Ballyhoo". I thought I was going to be rewarded as the band had to stop for about five minutes as the drummer's snare was replaced --- you can't play Bedbugs and Ballyhoo without a proper snare. But the song wasn't played. And I resisted calling the song out (Note to audience members, if the song isn't on the setlist, there's maybe a only a 3 percent chance that the band will play it if you scream for it. And even then, the band will only play it if you're nice about it.)

The set ended with "Ocean Rain". Some genius in the audience decided to toss the remains of his Bud Light into the air at the end of the song for dramatic effect and to create his own beer rain. Classy.