There are few bands that have survived with the cult following that Liverpool’s Echo & The Bunnymen has. On the fringes of goth, new romantic and new wave genres their melodramatic lovesick songs still capture the hearts and ears of fans the same way they did in the 1980s. When the band decided to kick-off their “The Very Best of Echo & The Bunnymen: More Songs to Learn and Sing” 2026 tour in Vancouver at the Commodore Ballroom in sold-out.
The night started on a bit of an odd note with local jazz outfit, The Nick Leffler Quartet. It was only hours before the concert we learned there was opening act – and a jazz quartet before a moody and dark new wave set seemed strange but by the time they got to their last number they’d won us over. There were folks dancing and smiling at the back of the ballroom to the delight of all of us who were lucky enough to snag a seat and table to enjoy the show.
Soon a thick cloud of smoke bellowed from the stage, over the crowd and slowly dissipated into the air as the last beams of daylight fought to shine through the windows facing Granville St. It was Sunday night and the eclectic audience that filled the sold-out Commodore Ballroom was ready to be taken to the church of Echo & The Bunnymen.
The setting was right as the ever-moody frontman, Ian McCulloch stepped to the microphone like a gothic priest in his trademark dark sunglasses, black trenchcoat and messy hair – seamlessly slipping into, Going Up.
By the time the band got to the chorus of The Cutter, it felt like the audience was singing louder than Ian McCulloch – we are hesitant to say we saw a faint smile on his face – maybe his stoic persona slipped for a moment but you could tell he and his bandmates were truly enjoying the moment. It felt like every other song would have a moment like this from Seven Seas, Rescue, and Bedbugs and Ballyhoo.
In a night filled with their own hits the bands still managed to slip in a partial cover or two. They weaved in Lou Reed’s Take a Walk on the Wild Side into their 1997 single Nothing Last Forever and not even two songs later they covered The Doors – but not The Doors song they famously covered in The Lost Boys soundtrack. It was rough and tumble cover of Roadhouse Blues at the tail-end of Villiers Terrace. Personally, we find it strange when bands of this stature rely on covers to keep the momentum going in their set but we totally understand after nearly 50 years of playing the same songs a band might want to mix it up a little.
As the night was clearly winding down, we waited on baited breath for arguably some of the Echo & The Bunnymen’s biggest songs and they did not disappoint us by making us wait too long. The concert-goers around us were audibly giddy when the band started launched into Bring on the Dancing Horses. The off-key choir of audience members filled in the gaps when Ian McCulloch stepped away from the mic and was enveloped in haze.
The evening came to a crescendo when guitarist, Will Sergeant struck the first chord of The Killing Moon. A sea of glowing cellphone screes reached for the sky to capture a moment of the magic that would unite generations of fans in this room. Whether this was your first time seeing Echo & The Bunnymen or your twentieth this was the song that none of us wanted miss.
Since the first time we heard The Killing Moon brooding lovesick menace we’ve been hooked. Only dreaming of being able to see it live one day and to be in the room with the Liverpool band that made us fall in love with the dark romanticism of Eighties new wave.
As the band disappeared into the fog before their two encores we noticed the audience starting to thin like so many hairlines in the crowd. We took the opportunity to slink our way closer to the stage without getting accosted for being too tall for the short people behind us to watch the high energy performance of Lips Like Sugar and Never Stop.
The lights dimmed one last time as Ian McCulloch mumbled something to the crowd in his thick uninterested Liverpool and casted off into Ocean Rain. The title and final track off their massive record, Ocean Rain and without a doubt one of the best songs of their entire catalogue. We soaked in the moment as waves of blue light crashed over what remained of the crowd before we set sail into the night into the downtown streets of Vancouver.
