Mike Scott, main man with British/Irish folky rockers The Waterboys, may be one of the most underrated songwriters on the planet. Like a Scottish Marshall Crenshaw, he's had a couple of hits but he's kinda criminally known for them by the wider world, when in fact his entire body of work deserves serious attention. He should be studied, and perhaps one day he will be.
At the Bellwether, Scott and his band were incredible. Essentially, they performed a handful of crowd faves, then the recent Life, Death and Dennis Hopper album in its entirety, then more classics.
Scott has surrounded himself with wonderful musicians, with the one American in the band -- Memphis keys man Brother Paul Brown -- the wild performer in the ranks. His keytar, which Scott refers to as the "white thing," is both glorious and hilarious.
Within the first batch of songs, we got the gorgeous "Glastonbury Song," as well as the "woo-hoo-hoo" sing-along of "Fisherman Blues" (the band's best song, in our opinion).
The Life, Death and Dennis Hopper portion of the set started with a video of country icon Steve Earle singing the Scott/Earle co-written "Kansas." From there, the live rendition of the album took us on quite the journey, Scott the narrator. He clearly adores visionaries, of which Hopper is definitely one. Earle too.
"Hopper's On Top (Genius)" is a celebration of that, and by the time the album ended with the beautiful and dramatic "The Passing of Hopper," we felt like we knew the legendary actor a little better. Or at least, a little deeper.
For the final portion of the set, we were back to Scott's arsenal. "Don't Bang the Drum," "Spirit," and "The Pan Within" are all from 1985's classic The is the Sea album, and they were given new life here.
Naturally, The Waterboys pulled out "The Whole of the Moon" as an encore, before finishing with a cover of Prince's "Purple Rain" (there's Scott's love of visionaries again).
Underrated Scott may be. But not by the crowd that gathered at The Bellwether on a Friday night.
