Echo and the Bunnymen, The Warner Theatre June , 2026

Almost exactly ten years ago (2016 for the mathematically impaired) I saw Echo and the Bunnymen in Washington DC at the famous 9:30 club. Ian McCulloch was in his late 50’s and I had heard rumors that he had lost a step or two.

Nothing could have been further from the truth. Ian nailed it. His band nailed it. It sounded spectacular. Ian, Will Sergeant, and the rest of the band went on long, breakless stretches, mixing their sounds with those by the Doors. I couldn’t have been more relieved (especially since my wife and I paid $160 per ticket on the secondary market, a new record for me at the time).

Fast forward ten years. I have my wife AND my soon-to-be-high-school aged son with me who has been dipping his toes into punk and darkwave. I had doubts again. I’ve taken my kids to some concerts for more modern bands in which we have a shared interest. The only time I’ve ever taken either of them to see a band that only I had interest was just recently and it was Modest Mouse with Built to Spill. He liked it. If my oldest can not only survive, but enjoy a cacophonic assault, I figured he could handle a classic post-punk band that has been known to be… hit or miss.

The band came out and the format was quite similar to the 930 club show from 10 years prior. Ian started off sounding great. His banter grew longer and more ranting as the show went on, often interrupting his songs to go on and on about what? I have no idea. I couldn’t understand a damn thing he was saying except how much he loved Bruce Springteen’s “Streets of Philadelphia” and something about dinosaurs?

And it didn’t matter that he appeared to get drunk as fuck as the night went on; such much that towards the end the crowd had to sing along to help Ian complete the song. The charisma was still there. I heard some complains about this performance and an even more erratic one in Boston as the next few days passed. I think if you’re going to complain about a post-punk band, especially with members pushing 70 years old, you’ve kind of missed the point. In the 80’s these guys and their contemporaries such as New Order and Jesus And Mary Chain were known to get way more Instigatory. There’s a well known joke that goes “I went to a fight, and a hockey game broke out”. Replace “hockey game” with concert and that’s how I imagine the 80’s, the decade before I started going out myself

And even if you were offended by the vocals, the rest of the band actually sounded BETTER than they did ten years prior.

While some might complain that Ian left his two best crooner songs for the end (Killing Moon and Lips Like Sugar) and couldn’t even finish, I find it kind of refreshing that a band born out of the chaos of the late 70’s, early 80’s punk movement still just doesn’t give a fuck. Bands running on nostalgia have become way too choreographed and packaged. My 14 year old kid even bought a t-shirt as we left and added some EATB tracks to his Spotify list on the way home. He gets it.

So for the haters I say… Have a few drinks and chill out. #TeamIan