A week ago I went to see Echo and the Bunnymen at the Fox in Oakland. I first heard their music about twenty five years ago, while carrying cups of beer-cheese soup at J.R. Bentley’s, the English Pub. One of the other waitresses at that restaurant was much more worldly than I was, and decided to play some of her tapes while we worked. The sound was very different from other music I listened to then (think Genesis). The other tape she had was by The English Beat. We sure were trying to be a truly British pub on Cooper Street in Arlington, Texas.
I did not become a true fan of Echo and the Bunnymen, though. While I have fond memories of “Lips like Sugar” connected to a certain mix tape sent to me in the late 80s, I never knew the band members’ names, and did not bother to understand most of the lyrics. I had a funny moment at the concert last Thursday: while the lead singer was doing a rendition of “Bring on the Dancing Horses”, I could swear that I was hearing “Charlie Brown, Rolling Stones”… But all the sound that night was muffled. Either the acoustics of The Fox Theater, or maybe the sound set up of the concert were not up to par. The lead guy would try to say something in between the songs and it would come out like: “Wasubba baraba thimana England!”, or “blathawa, wamara, sing a song”. The lighting was very annoying, too. The band did not want us to see how they aged, so they insisted on being backlit, and during drum fills were blinding us with flashes of strobe lights. Sometimes I was not sure if the vocalist was facing the audience or not. Did he have two little bob cat ears on his head, or was he just weirdly twisted and the lighting was doing some tricks to his hair? The people in front of us were enjoying themselves, however – they were in the first row of the balcony and I was afraid they might fall down. The woman would jump up an down upon hearing a favorite song and the guy was leaning out and stretching his right arm, trying to decide whether a landscape or portrait orientation would work better on his iPhone.
After this less-than-perfect concert experience I was trying to remember the concerts of all sorts I saw. There were not many, and here is a sample:
1. Circa 1975: classical symphony in the Church of St Magdalena in Wroclaw, Poland. I was a child proud to go with my dad to a serious event, but I just got a new blue coat made of nylon material called “ortalion”. The church was cold, so I had to keep it on. It was also an Evangelical church, not a Catholic one, and whitewashed and devoid of decoration all around. I had nothing to look at. I remember that a man in front kept turning around and giving me the look. That was because, of course, I squirmed, and my coat squished and squeaked.
2. Circa 1984: Genesis in Dallas, TX. I was very excited because, up until then, I did not see a live rock concert. Hardly anybody came to Poland to perform in the 1970s and early 1980s ( I can think of only BonyM and Kraftwerk who did). I smuggled a camera in, but I got seats way behind the stage, so my picture of Phil Collins is about 1/8 inch tall.
3. Probably in the summer of 1985: Texas Jam, with boyfriend Robert and his friend Jim. Rush, a favorite band of Texan youth then, played, in a huge stadium, OUTSIDE! It was incredibly hot, maybe around 106 F, and I spilled a strawberry slushy all over my white Gloria Vanderbilt jeans (the kind I had to lie down to zipper).
4. Probably the best concert experience of all times: some time before Niels was born, when I was taking violin lessons, my teacher invited me to a play-through of Holy Names College orchestra where she was a violinist. I do not remember the repertoire, but I sat very close, left of center, and the wave of sound covered me and physically swept me inside the music. I was really a part of it, unlike last Thursday, when I was just an impatient spectator, only thinking about what I will write about the concert in this blog.
Echo and the Bunnymen also had an orchestra in their first set – one of their albums was heavy on strings, and even tympani. In my opinion, those classical musicians were the true stars: young women with long hair, dressed in formal black gowns, plucking and bowing the strings to the uncomplicated rock rhythms. They were performing certainly not the most ambitious program in their careers, but I would like them to know that I appreciated them. At least I could see their faces.
Echo finished their second set at 11 pm without ever playing “Lips Like Sugar”. Maybe they planned it for a spectacular encore, but we had to leave. We had a teenage babysitter and it was a school night.
