Appeared in "Temple Press", written by Caren Halpern
December 1992

The ticket said the opening act was scheduled for 9:30 p.m., and I figured that Echolyn would start at 11:00.

As it was, the 23 East Cabaret was packed Saturday night, Nov. 28, and they started an hour earler than scheduled. They opened to a screaming crowd with In Every Garden, Ray Weston's best vocal, from their second independeltly produced CD, Suffocating The Bloom

Although Echolyn has been accused of sounding eerily like Yes, Genesis and Rush, the five-man band from West Point performs all original music. The band members include Weston on lead vocals, Brett Kull on lead guitar and vocals, Chris Buzby on keyboards and backing vocals, Tom Hyatt on bass, and Paul Ramsey with a drumming style he ripped off from Rush's Neil Peart.

Included in the evening's set were The Great Men, about the founders and teachers of idealism, and Carpe Diem (or "Seize The Day", for those of you who know English), from their first, self-titled CD, which is still selling in Europe and Asia.

From their album that was released that Saturday night, they also perofmed 21, a song about Weston and Kull's views on the coming of age. Their song Winterthru recalls the childhood days of winter. Here I Am, heard for the first time Saturday, A Little Nonsense, (or 'Ein Bisscken Unsinn' ,for those of you who know German), was performed by Weston, who sung by candlelight for One Voice. Memoirs From Between, the perfect description of Kull.

A Suite For The Everyman features six vocal pieces and five instrumental movements, filling 28 minutes of the screaming Echolyn fan's attention. The vocal pieces are titled A Cautios Repose, Bearing Down, two duets by Kull and Weston, Mr. Oxy Moron, where Kull presents the listener with many juxtapositions he perceives in today's society, and I Am The Tide, an excellent, not-quite-acapeella "solo" by Kull. While performing Those What Want To Buy, Weston acts out a persistent contractors trying to get Kull to sell him something that can't be sold. Meanwhile, Suffocating The Bloom, the title track on the album, explains how society suffocates the bloom of our childhood idealism.

Their 'final' song is the fan favorite, The Velveteen Rabbit from the first CD. The song recalls "Old Brownie," a childhood friend of Kull's, and running through rainstorms and reliving youh rather "than talk[ing] about policitcs, sports or TV."

The evening ended when they left the stage and the entire crowd was screaming at top volume for an ecore. Reluctantly (NOT!), they came back. The crowd was chaing for another favorite, when Weston said they wanted to do "this one..."

Weston, Kull and Buzby, as if on cue, launched into their clear, harmonizing vocals on Meaning And The Moment, the encore song the cheering song wanted.

This was one of the better Echolyn performances I have been to. The audience was pumped, and the energy from the crowd radiated onto the stage, creating one hell of a performance.

As a tie-in to the album, roses were given to the ladies, and the Cabaret was decorated with bouquets of flowers, to, as Kull said, "get rid of that awful bar smell."