Echo & The Bunnymen were hoping to be singing “You’ll Never Walk Alone” two Saturdays from now, but instead they’ll be singing their own songs.
The band hails from Liverpool, and like most other Liverpudlians they’re super excited about Liverpool FC advancing to the final of the UEFA Champions League, the season-long soccer tournament featuring top clubs from leagues all over Europe. For non-soccer fans, the Champions League final is arguably the biggest match of the year in all of club soccer; it’s a rare and special occurrence to see your favorite club advance that far. Unfortunately, the Bunnymen are scheduled to perform at the Birmingham Symphony Hall on Saturday, 5/26, directly conflicting with the big game. By sports-fan standards, it’s an excruciating situation.
Ian McCulloch and company figured out an easy solution to their dilemma: They’d simply move the Birmingham show to Tuesday, 5/29 allowing the band the opportunity to watch Mo Salah and the Reds take on Real Madrid on 5/26. The band announced this plan last night:
Both our fans and Liverpool FC are very close to our hearts and after much reflection we decided we couldn’t play a show during the Champions League Final.
We asked UEFA to change the date of the match but they denied our request.
We would always want to give 100% when we play but in this instance our heads wouldn’t have been in the right place. We sincerely hope you understand.
Alas, the Echo fans of Birmingham weren’t so happy about it. Commenters on Facebook were almost unanimously angry and disappointed, calling the decision “very flaky,” “very shabby,” “piss poor,” etc., while lamenting their derailed travel plans. The response was so emphatically negative that the band decided to reverse their decision. Yep, the show is back on Saturday:
Our Birmingham Symphony Hall show will now still go ahead on the original scheduled date of Saturday 26th May. We’ve decided to reverse our decision to change the show date following our fans reaction to last night’s social media announcement.
Mac and Will are deeply upset about the situation and are really sorry for any unnecessary disappointment caused.
This must be pretty infuriating news for the commenters who announced they’d already cancelled their travel accommodations, and it’s probably pretty disappointing for the band, too. A real lose-lose, even if their preferred club wins! I guess they’ll just have to stay off their phones that night and watch on delay? Don’t spoil the result for them, people of Birmingham.
Find both of the band’s messages below.
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