You know you have raised a young pad wan well when your company is requested to join them in celebrating the genius of the evergreen Echo and the Bunnymen.
Tuesday 10th June at the 02 arena in Bristol. What a privilige ....
A thought echoed (get it?) by that heavyweight journal the Bristol Evening Post..
Pioneering 1980s band Echo & The Bunnymen are in a very different place to the band I saw performing their seminal album, Ocean Rain, at the Colston Hall 30 years ago.
Since their post-punk heyday, this Liverpool band has had to deal with more than most, including a death in the band, a split, a spell with a temporary replacement singer and a reunion.
Although now performing as a six-piece, these days the only original members are genius guitarist Will Sergeant and charismatic frontman Ian McCulloch, but then these two have been together on and off since 1978 and their songwriting partnership is as influential as Morrissey and Marr or the Gallagher brothers.
On tour to promote Meteorites, their eleventh studio album (and first in five years), this Bristol gig had been rescheduled from last month when McCulloch’s throat infection resulted in the postponement of their UK dates.
Engulfed by billowing dry ice and performing in near-darkness for most of the 90-minute set, the 56-year-old McCulloch seemed happy to stay in the shadows and behind the safety of his black shades, only leaving his position to have a crafty drag on an electronic cigarette at the back of the stage.
Cutting more than a passing resemblance to Ricky Tomlinson in The Royle Family, the barrel-chested and bearded Sergeant kept his head down throughout despite fans shouting their appreciation for the only constant band member since they formed 36 years ago.
Low-key he may be but Sergeant’s imperial guitarwork shimmered and chimed with the same crystalline clarity it did three decades ago, particularly on Rescue, All That Jazz and The Cutter.
The band aired five songs from the new album and they were received more with politeness than fervour, only the title track and Holy Moses really rising above the realms of mediocrity.
The new material was always going to be the filler in a set studded with gems from their career and the band revisited some of their most iconic songs from 1984’s Ocean Rain album, including My Kingdom, Seven Seas and The Killing Moon.
Mid-80s hits Never Stop, Bring on The Dancing Horses and Lips Like Sugar provided a few goosebump moments for fans of a certain vintage but the biggest cheer of the evening was for a sprawling version of Nothing Lasts Forever, their biggest-selling single, that melded into a medley of Lou Reed’s Walk on The Wild Side and Wilson Pickett’s In The Midnight Hour.
Echo & The Bunnymen may not be the force they once were in terms of sales and stature, but this was certainly a performance with plenty of reminders of just how brightly they once shone.
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| ..... and these are bunny men |
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