Echo and the Bunnymen

It all starts to come apart three songs in. After a game attempt by Arborist to engage an increasingly uninterested audience, Echo and the Bunnymen take to the stage in sheets of dry ice. After opening with Crocodiles and following up with a slightly shaky Rescue, they hit their stride with a confident take on fan favourite Villiers Terrace. It's then you can see the Bunnymen, anonymous session geezers aside, how Ian McCullogh sees them - the greatest band in the world. And then it goes awry.

'What time are the Doors at? I thought we were seeing Echo and the Bunnymen' your author quips on the way in, in an eerie prophecy of what was to transpire. For halfway through the aforementioned Villiers Terrace we are subjected to a segue into Roadhouse Blues, setting the scene for the rest of the night – a combination of utter brilliance and surly pub-rock that wouldn't be out of place in a regional boozer on a rainy Friday.

So we get People are Strange, from the Lost Boys Soundtrack. We endure a never ending Nothing Ever Lasts For Ever where Mac indulges his Lou Reed fantasies by taking the Britpop lite ballad on a walk on the wild side. We're set cringing by Ian's ill judged attempt to make Bring On the Dancing Horses a massive singalong, when, frankly, not enough people know the words. But we endure.

Why endure? Because we're served up a feast of post punk classics, Will Sergeant wrestling sounds out of his guitar that would send Savages or Interpol hiding behind their copies of Unknown Pleasures. Bedbugs and Ballyhoo sets the bar high – a 30 year old stream of consciousness B-side tossed of with casual aplomb. Over the Wall usually languishes as an album track on Heaven Up Here – tonight it's polished up and given a new set of teeth, propulsive and vicious.

Will's the real man of the match tonight, Ian his usual grumpy self (visibly shaken after Bring On the Dancing Horses, unable to get back into his stride for the Donnie Darko song. There's a lot of chaff tonight, but the flashes of brilliance show there's still life in the Bunnymen.

Shane Horan

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