Echo and the Bunnymen Keep Quiet in Boston

Echo and the Bunnymen treated New York and Boston to two intimate performances over the weekend. The post-punk veterans augmented three special North American shows in Toronto, Berkeley, and Los Angeles, where they will perform their 1984 classic album 'Ocean Rain' in its entirety, with two tiny club shows at New York's Mercury Lounge on Saturday and Boston's Great Scott on Sunday. How intimate? Great Scott, a bar turned indie rock venue, has a capacity of 220. Needless to say, tickets were sold out within seconds of being announced a few weeks ago.

These club shows celebrate the Liverpudlian legends' new album, 'The Fountain,' which was released Oct. 13. However, much to the delight of the audience, the set mostly stuck with well-trod songs, adding only a sprinkling of new numbers like 'Forgotten Fields' and notably, the first single from 'Fountains,' 'Think I Need It Too,' a sweetly seductive pop song laden with signature Bunnymen yearn and yield.

In Boston, frontman Ian McCulloch, the man who made army surplus trench coats sexy, wore a black pea coat a couple of shades removed from a Merseyside docker's donkey jacket, and shades that provided sanctuary from direct eye contact. The 50-year-old singer remained static throughout, clasping the microphone with both hands, and he wasn't his usual loquacious self either, as shallow mutterings between songs were as flat as his once-toweringly teased hair.

But his voice was superb, crystalline yet resonant, purring through the melodic wash of 'Seven Seas,' stabbing at the spiky 'Rescue,' beautifully expressive on 'The Cutter' and 'The Killing Moon' and achingly anxious on 'Lips Like Sugar.' Guitarist Will Sergeant, the only other founding member left in the six-man lineup, added wiry jangling riffs and deceptively low-key licks, the antitheses of a showy shredder. With a repertoire as hauntingly classic as the Bunnymen's, there are nights for chat and those when the music does enough talking.

Echo and the Bunnymen rounds out this US trip with a performance on 'Jimmy Kimmel Live' on Friday, Oct. 23.