Kissing the tortoise shell

This is not a review of the Echo and the Bunnymen concert from their last show on their 2026 US tour in Minneapolis. I enjoyed myself. They played enough of their old songs to satisfy me, although I would have liked a few deeper tracks from Ocean Rain. It is no secret at all that was my favorite of their albums and the last one that I enjoyed 100%. Crocodiles was excellent, as was Porcupine, but I merely liked those albums “a lot”, whereas Ocean Rain was a near spiritual experience for me the first time I listened.

The performance aside (old guys playing old music well enough to justify the cost of admission), it was the people watching that intrigued me while waiting for the lads to come onstage.

The people were split into two groups by age: the geezers like me, and the early twenty-somethings. Almost none of them were between the ages of 25 and 50. And, while I am not generally very kind to myself when I look in the mirror (which is why I focus on brushing teeth or eliminating sprouting ear hair when I do so I cannot see the sum of the whole) — I was earnestly surprised at how young my peers made me look. Although almost none could have been even ten years my senior, many of them looked closer to my mother and father’s age than seemed reasonable, especially the men.

I forced myself to look in the mirror when I got home. Nope. That guy in the mirror had grey hair and a few more wrinkles than ten years ago, but I felt I looked what you can expect for mid-fifties. If I were generous to myself, I might even place me at pre-50s, but that is a bit of a stretch I think. I’m possibly not a good judge of that these days, so maybe I am mistaken.

The conversations overheard also leaned a bit on the absurd scale. Some of it sounded genuinely trapped in the 80s, but ludicrously out of touch with the era. Bragging about how hifi their stereo. Talking about bands from the era as if they were experts, but getting basic details wrong. Namedropping acts as if to prove they were there first, but unable to provide context.

At first, I was surprised that I didn’t see any of my peers who I clearly recognized from that time — a couple of faces looked familiar, but didn’t belong to people I actually hung out with. But it became increasingly clear that the majority of the crowd were not actually part of my peer group. And the younger were not recognizable for obvious reasons.

Watching people join sing-alongs during the performance, it became clear that people didn’t know any of the songs aside from those getting limited airplay on a single radio station in the cities. For the most part, people sang along with “Lips Like Sugar” and “The Killing Moon”, with a handful of others singing along with “Ocean Rain” during the encore, about the same singing “Rescue”. Other than that, it was mostly blank stares amongst both young and old.

It was surreal at times, especially when one of those people who looked ten years my senior (and probably wasn’t) caused the show to pause for a medical incident.

The man passed out. Being one of the more belligerent of the concert-goers, I put it at drink or dehydration, although it wasn’t all that hot in the crowd. When the show resumed, we had no further shenanigans from his area behind me. I expect younger crowds at concerts to be rowdy. Not 50-somethings who look like 60-somethings.

It made me rethink going to concerts in the future.

There are only a handful of shows that would interest me as I get older. I’m realizing that live music doesn’t hold the same appeal it did at one time. My tolerance for the crowds has largely evaporated — whereas I didn’t mind rubbing elbows in the past, I want and need more personal space these days and the shenanigans of some of the concert-attendees is worse than I remember it being when I used to see live music all the time.

On my list, if they come around (* = low likelihood):

• Kælan Mikla
• Heartworms (*)
• New Model Army (*)
• Heilung (more for the “ritual” experience, maybe give a pass to preserve the memory of the first time)
• Skinny Puppy (*) (their “last show” was a few years ago)

There a few others I’d see on the cheap, but not pay current pricing for. My threshold for paying to be annoyed by crowds has moved. Besides: People watching wasn’t as much fun of a pastime as it used to be.