Oh darling sugar honey
When it was nice and sunny
And when I had some money
We would go and see Echo and the Bunny
Men
That beautiful couple of couplets, courtesy of Half Man Half Biscuit, was not exactly appropriate tonight, audience numbers being severely curtailed due to the Arctic conditions. “It’s sold out, but no one’s turned up,” said one bouncer, which just about sums it up, the balcony being closed and downstairs being fullish, but a good few punters failed to show.
This show was subtitled “a masterclass in rock ‘n’ roll”, the band never being short on self-aggrandisement. In some ways the decision to tour the first two albums in full is an odd one, neither of them being given the “classic” status of Ocean Rain; however having played the first album to death way back almost 30 years ago Betty did feel a wee frisson of excitement – the whole lot live…
The Bunnymen are of course a legendary band, one of those emergent from the post punk scene of Eric’s… we won’t go into that, suffice to say several key things relevant to tonight: they have always gone down well in Scotland, the Highlands and Islands tour of the early 80s taking them to Shetland among other places, and the fire-limit busting shows at the Barrowlands in ’85. The band are on the umpteeth lineup, the core of Ian MacCulloch and Will Sargeant have made I think five albums (at least, along with the other Electrifixation, or whatever it was, moniker) since the early 90s reformation, the same number as made by the original lineup, drummer Peter De Freitas having died and bass player Les Pattinson having been part of the reformation but leaving the band again a few years later.
So, the gig, then.
Overhung and backed by the camo nets and shrubbery of the first album Crocodiles’ cover, the stage was dark and when the band came on a bit after 9 (support act was Kelly Stolz, arrived too late, no idea) they were pretty much in darkness, Mac being in silhouette pretty much until the encore. A five piece lineup included a keyboard player and second guitarist, giving Mac freedom to croon and Will space to chaff the strings.
They powered through Crocodiles at breakneck speed and with a crunchy sound, souping up songs many which at the time were templates for greater things. Some songs get their first ever live airing north of the border while others are revived – the album is played in sequence, the primitive ‘Stars are Stars’ and ‘Pride’ giving way to the gorgeous riff of ‘Rescue’, the menacing ‘All that Jazz’ and ‘Pictures On My Wall’, sounding better than ever. The pumped-up-on-steriods sound highlighted what was good about these songs in the first place and why the Bunnymen were mentioned in the same sentences as future stadium shaggers U2 and Simple Minds. ‘Villiers Terrace’ however highlights for me what was special about the Bunnymen at the time, claustrophic and charged with social comment, a reflection on Liverpool in the very early 80s. Even album closer ‘Happy Death Men’, for me the runt of the set, sounded pretty good.
And with a brief pause it was on, to Heaven Up Here. Possibly a stronger album but not a Betty favourite, it also got the audience going and certainly songs like ‘Over the Wall’ and ‘All My Colours’ still sound good – comparisons with Edge guitar patterns pre-Unforgettable Fire certainly interesting.
After another 35 or so minutes, off they went for a longish break, then back for a brace of “greatest hits”. Starting with ‘Lips Like Sugar’, never a favourite for me, and ‘Bring On The Dancing Horses’, again a bit lame but lightened by Mac’s foray into ‘Walk on the Clydeside’ (a Hugh Reed and the Velvet Underpants cover) then a ride through ‘Nothing Lasts Forever’, probably the only post-1987 song most people would recognise, they then moved into “Killing Moon”, their only real bona fide classic, and ‘The Cutter’, an unusual but majestic highlight of their career.
With eulogies to the Glasgow audience and declarations of love (“I’m proud to be known as Mac”, etc), this was an indication that the Bunnymen still have it, and hopefully will be doing this again soon – how about Porcupine in its entirety next time?