A Night With The Bunnymen

                                                                Photo by Childerico Fernandes

Rio may be known for its nightlife soaked with samba and other Brazilian rhythms, but it was English post-punk heroes of Echo & The Bunnymen who brought the house down last night at Fundição Progresso in Lapa.

By Childerico Fernandes

By 10 pm, an audience filled with a generation that grew up listening to British bands had already crowded the venue, a huge 19th century building that once housed Brazil’s largest foundry. Echo & The Bunnymen’s first Brazilian concert in five years was scheduled to start at 11:30, and so it did. The eighties began to seem like they have never ended.

The first chords of Rescue, from the band’s first album ‘Crocodiles’, released in a distant 1980, were enough to ignite the forty and fifty-somethings who sang each and every line of the band’s extensive repertoire along with the vocalist Ian McCuloch for the entire two hours of the show.

A string of fan favorites was played impeccably with passion and excitement. The musicians seemed bewildered at the response gems like Never Stop, Do it clean and Bedbugs & Ballyhoo got. Inbetween  In-between songs, a not so very chatty Ian either said “thank you” or “obrigado”, a word he has known very well since their first now historical gig in Rio in May, 1987. The second most famous popular band from Liverpool has played several times in Brazil, always before sizable audiences. Last night’s concert was the first in the new South American tour to promote their latest album titled ‘Meteorites’.

The show went on with the whimsical beauty of Bring On The Dancing Horses, the stand-alone single from 1985; People Are Strange, their Doors cover for the film ‘The Lost Boys’; The Puppet; Pictures On My Wall; All My Colours, maybe the artsiest of their brilliant past canon; Silver; A Promise; The Back of Love; Lips Like Sugar and What Are You Going To Do With Your Life?, a track from their less popular set of albums after the mid-nineties comeback. All under an intense blue light that added to the imagery  evoked by Ian’s very often subtle and  romantically shady lyrics. But the best was yet to come.

The song everyone was waiting for. The song that has been voted a number of times as the best rock song ever. The song that epitomizes all that Echo & The Bunnymen is famous for, ‘The Killing Moon’, with its lyrics about “a sky being all hung with jewels”  got the most ovation of the evening. Couples crying their hearts out and singletons waving  their arms in a trance wove together a true sense of communion that embraced the five thousand people packing the venue. Such is the magic of a great tune. Such is the magic of Echo & The Bunnymen. But that was not all.

To top it off, after a few more numbers , a great rendition of The Cutter, the song that opened their 1982 album ‘Porcupine’, heralded the end of an incredibly powerful concert. All in all, a night to remember. A night that revived the memories of a decade that may have spawned the best bands in the history of British pop music. At least in the hearts of the smiling ones exiting Fundição Progresso in the wee hours of this November 2nd.

Tonight, the band is playing in São Paulo at HSBC Brasil. Doors open at 8 pm.Admission ranges from R$ 80 to R$ 220.