The Waterboys – Life Death And Dennis Hopper Review

It’s funny how we can become fixated on people long after their star has burned out. There is a theory that the memory of almost no person lives on more than say a few hundred years after they die, so what the current era will leave behind is anybody’s guess. But in Dennis Hopper we have at least an anti-hero hero who deserves to be celebrated.

Hopper was a maverick who acted, directed, protested and photographed his way through the latter twentieth century and it was at an exhibition of his pictures that The Waterboys’ Mike Scott developed a fascination for this story. The front man himself is no creative slouch, winning an Ivor Novello Award for Whole Of The Moon, a memory of when the band briefly grappled with the likes of U2 and Simple Minds for the crown of biggest Celtic-rock outfit.

Inspired, Scott decided that Hopper should be honoured with a concept album made up of thirteen songs, plus an instrumental for each of his five wives. Appropriately it has the feel of a soundtrack, and the chronological pathway also works. As ambitious as the idea itself though is the list of guest stars, as Steve Earle (Opener Kansas), Bruce Springsteen (Ten Years Gone) and Fiona Apple (The outstanding Letter From An Unknown Girlfriend) all make game changing contributions.

Not everything else works as well as you suspect it did on the storyboard, but Andy (A Guy Like You), Freakout At The Mud Palace and Hopper’s On Top (Genius) are all well worth the price of your ticket. Centuries from now very few of us will have our name in lights, but as an artefact Life Death And Dennis Hopper will baffle and entertain whoever or whatever is around to spin the discs.

You can read a full review here.