“Mr. Brightside” by The Killers continues to hold up as the “Hey Jude” of the 21st century. And nearly 20 years after its release, it still sounds fantastic — sung together amongst 20,000 friends in arenas, with 20 drunken blokes in the local pub, or while washing Covid away. So it’s no surprise that the aughts standard is a mechanism for recovery and stability, and that’s what Gulf Blvd has done with a darkwave cover that’s aimed at helping the artist bounce back a bit from the recent destruction of Hurricane Ian.
The Tampa-based project released the synth-heavy cover to Bandcamp on October 1, a few short days after Ian made landfall as a Category 4 storm on the coast of southwestern Florida.
“As many of you know, just a few days ago a storm ripped through my home state of Florida,” Gulf Blvd writes on Bandcamp. “It will never be the same. People lost their lives, their homes, places my family made their greatest memories, wiped clean from this earth like they never existed. The destruction that took place here will take years to rebuild. They say that’s the price we pay to live in paradise. It took me 31 years to understand what they meant by that. I live in Naples, just south of where Ian made landfall. Luckily I made it through without even losing power. But even though my house is still standing, this storm has left me in financial ruin. As with many people, I’m stuck at home due to the roadways being flooded, I’m missing work and not sure when ill be back.”
Gulf Blvd adds: “So instead of asking for money I thought I’d work on a track during the storm. At times I wasn’t sure if the power was gonna go out and I wasn’t gonna be able to finish it. But I knew once this thing was over I was gonna need some help.”
The cover was posted as a Bandcamp exclusive.
“At this point every dollar counts,” Gulf Blvd notes. “Even if you have nothing to give, please take this song as a gift. I hope it brightens your day a bit.”