Echo and the Bunnymen
2023-11-18
Darker Waves Festival
Waves Stage
Huntington Beach, CA
SOURCE:
SP-CMC-8 (w/Mods) > Sony PCM-A10 > Sandisk Mini-SD Card (64gb - Class 10)
TRANSFER:
.WAV (24 Bit) > Adobe Audition 2023 CC (normalize/amplify/tracking/dithering/downsampling) > .WAV (16 Bit) > Trader's Little Helper > FLAC (Level 6)
SETLIST:
01. Intro
02. Roadhouse Blues (The Doors cover) *^
03. (interlude)
04. Second Intro
05. Bring on the Dancing Horses
06. Rescue
07. Lips Like Sugar
08. People Are Strange (The Doors cover) *
09. Bedbugs and Ballyhoo *
10. The Killing Moon
11. The Cutter
* featuring Robby Krieger
^ featuring Andrew Cole
NOTES:
Where to begin? What a strange and obscure set by Echo and the Bunnymen. First off, I heard through the grapevine that day that the night before, they had cancelled their show with about 3 minutes until start time (as the rumor goes) due to an "illness" in the band. While I do feel bad for the people who were attending that show, that sort of comes with the territory for a current day Echo and the Bunnymen show. It's literally a toss up before the band physically takes the stage. And even when they do, Ian still has a high chance of walking off. Though I feel festival shows are a bit safer with them, as I'm sure the paydays are a lot nicer and harder to turn down.
Anyway, they ARE LATE taking the stage here, almost 20 minutes late. Well about 10 minutes into waiting for them to take the stage, you can tell the stage crew is scrambling to set up some extra mics, and then out walks this old man with a guitar and he starts fiddling around and kicks into The Door's "Roadhouse Blues" and sure enough it's fucking Robby Krieger from the Doors man (I can't help but hear him introduced by Scott Stapp from Creed in my head, from their Woodstock '99 set, ha). And out with him is Andrew Cole (had to look him up) on vocals. And they end up playing the full version of the song, including the "woke up this morning and got myself a beer" crowd sing-a-long. It was bizarre and kinda cool I guess. During this song, an annoying hum/buzzing sound starts and Robby gets really pissed off and basically almost stops playing and threatens to walk off unless they get rid of. "This fucking sucks" in his own words.
Would I call this bizarre cover/song part of the Echo and the Bunnymen set? I dunno, probably not, as the band was not out there, but it was during their allotted set time with all their gear on stage, so I'm including it as the opening part of their set on this here recording. After Robby and Andrew walk off, it takes another 5-6 minutes for the actual band to come out and start their set, again about 20 minutes later than the original scheduled start time.
Ian, whether sick or not, sounded like I expected him to. Not great, but not super horrible either. I mean, I can't understand half of what he fucking mumbles up there anyway, so what's the difference? They end up inviting Robby back out for their cover of "People Are Strange" and he sticks around and doodles on "Bedbugs and Ballyhoo" too. I mean, I got to hear their Doors cover with Robby Krieger of all people, how cool is that? I dunno if that has ever happened before in the past (probably, I'm guessing), but it was a cool thing to be part of that night I think. I honestly don't think some of the crowd knew who Robby Krieger was at first as some people started leaving saying the band wasn't coming out and cancelled. Ignorance is bliss, they say.
Given the Robby factor, and the fact this set was at night when it was dark so the lighting and atmosphere was "better", in my opinion, I'll say I enjoyed this set a lot better than their Cruel World set from earlier in the year. Not that that's saying much though. Or is it? I dunno.
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