British Invasion legend Eric Burdon with his new line-up of the iconic group that launched him, The Animals, descended upon the Olympia Theatre Tuesday night for a trip down memory lane all the while leaving some room to make new memories. With multiple generations on hand to cheer him on, he gave them reason to and rewarded their loyalty with a rousing set of blues-inflected rock that even included the reworking of some cherished classics. He even paid homage to rock pioneer Bo Diddley with a stirring rendition of Bo Diddley Special off his acclaimed 2013 album Til Your River Runs Dry.
But as one might imagine, the fans were in attendance to hear classic tracks Please Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood, We Gotta Get Out of this Place, When I Was Young, and obviously the seminal favourite of favourites, House of the Rising Sun. The pioneering rock soldiers not only delighted with gems from the Animals catalogue, they even dipped into Burdon’s time with the funk rock powerhouse War and delivered the crowd pleaser Spill the Wine (Dig That Girl).
Defying Father Time, Burdon’s voice was in top form, and he belted out some challenging material in relatively effortless fashion. Fans were on cloud nine, even with some classics reworked a bit. Nothing would disappoint, and no one went home disappointed. If The British Are Coming sounds like an echo of a time gone by, Montreal was ecstatic the British came back on this cold and snowy Montreal night. Rock and roll will clearly never die.