All I Ever Wanted To See...

I went and saw Echo & the Bunnymen last night here in Chicago and afterwards I walked away kinda wishing I hadn’t. What’s the saying, fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me? This was the second time I’d seen them play since they reformed in the late 90s and this gig was only slightly better than the last time. And while I didn’t start this site to slag anyone off (a task I consider far easier than writing about how or why you actually love something), let’s just say that while I’ll never stop playing my Echo & The Bunnymen records, I don’t foresee continuing to hand over my hard-earned cash to a group who permeate a noticeable disinterest towards performing live.

Better to spend that aforementioned hard earned cash on another thirty-plus year old group, namely The Church who, on a spur-of-the-moment decision, I went and saw last week with probably the same crowd as last night’s Bunnymen gig. This show was not only 180 degrees different and better that last night’s lackluster one, but the band themselves seemed one-hundred percent genuinely thankful for their fans who have and did come out to see them play as part of their 30th Anniversary An Intimate Space tour.

This is a band who not only are making some of the most creative and innovative (not to mention gorgeous) atmospheric guitar music of their long career, but who are also doing exactly what they want to be doing both musically and professionally. And for those of you whose only familiarity with The Church come from either 1988’s Starfish or any of the other equally wonderful albums that preceded it, I charge you to go and listen to any of the records they’ve released since 1998’s Hologram of Baal right up to last years incredible Untitled #23. And while the mold isn’t necessarily be broken and made anew with any of these releases, what you do find is a band artistically reinvested after having spent most of the 90s unsure of both themselves and their craft.

The Church – Anchorage (mp3)

(from the eMusic download, Untitled #23, Second Motion Records, 2009)