Echo and the Bunnymen + Kelley Stoltz @ Birmingham Academy, 4th December 2010

Showing no sign of letting the seminal album bandwagon run out of steam Echo and the Bunnymen decided that one album was not enough and tonight expanded the format by playing their first two albums, Crocodiles and Heaven Up Here, back to back, and uninterrupted.

This resulted in another top gig at the excellent but totally disorganised Birmingham Academy! If it hadn’t have been for the intervention of Pete, who turned out to be the band’s manager, then we may not have got in to photograph and review the night at all. In fact the main result of the delay was that we missed almost all of the support which was a shame.

Kelley Stoltz comes with a good reputation having impressed audience on the recent US tour standing in for the scheduled support after they fell fowl of the Icelandic volcano earlier in the year. So it was frustrating to only hear a couple for songs, although he and his band do a mean cover of Heaven Up Here! What we did hear was enough to recommend another listen so I hope he turns up on these shores again soon.

For a Bunnymen fan the two album format is actually more exciting than it may sound. The band may have included tracks off both albums in set lists over the years but some of the songs on show hadn’t been played for nearly thirty years and a couple may not actually have been played live at all. No doubt any hard core fans will put me right.

Some fans had been approaching this with a bit of trepidation because Heaven Up Here is renowned for the size of the vocal range and the difficulty and intensity of the songs. After all it was performances like these that led some in the music press to dub Ian McCullough “the voice of the 80s” when Heaven up Here was released. Could the band cut it this time around?

The other worry was whether or not this tour could match the impact of the earlier Ocean Rain tour, in terms of it being an event and in the excellence of the performance. After all Will Sergeant had already promised Birmingham Live that this was going to be “an extravaganza”.

As promised, the staging harked back to the early days of the Bunnymen ,with “the grotto” as Mac called it, festooned with camouflage netting, filled with smoke and the band themselves would appear dressed in combat gear. With the lights down low this had the desired effect with the crowd becoming more and more agitated as they anticipated the band’s arrival on stage.

They appeared to usual background accompaniment of Gregorian chant fading into the open effects of Going Up and as the bass and drums rose to the familiar crescendo it was clear that the crowd were not going to be disappointed.

The band approached Crocodiles in a more leisurely manner than the album would suggest and if I was being picky then I missed the direct lead in from Monkeys to Crocodiles which to me is a key feature of the album. Instead Mac took a break between each song. Because the Bunnymen only every cherry pick songs from these albums it’s easy to forget what self- contained packages they are and the impact that the songs have all together. Someone in the crowd shouted for Read it In Books only for Mac to point out that this was a rendition of the UK version of the album and that song only appeared on the American version, muttering something about “down-loaders” as he turned away from the mic. Crocodiles peaks with Monkeys Crocodiles and Rescue before becoming darker with Villiers Terrace and ending on a sombre note with Happy Death Men, and this is how it played out tonight. Maybe this is why Mac announced to the crowd that Heaven Up Here was next but Crocodiles was his favourite. Or may be it was because the harder work was to come!

The triumph of this performance of Heaven Up Here was that Mac had the crowd on his side from the first notes of Show Of Strength. They knew that this was going to be a tricky one with too many high notes for a voice that has been subject to thirty years worth of nicotine intake — “do we have any eunuchs in the crowd?”. One of the strongest openings to any album passed by without any mishaps, Show Of Strength followed by With A Hip and Over the Wall but it was A Promise that saw Mac looking to the crowd to join in to fill in the gaps – “ the best ensemble singing I’ve heard in years” as he put it. No-one seemed to mind, even when he admitted that remembering the lyrics to “the holy trinity” of songs that end the album, No Dark Things, Turquoise Days and All I Want, was beyond him -“They were very psychedelic- and as you know I’m not psychedelic any more”.

So out came the crib sheets and a comedy moment where Mac had berated the lighting engineer so that the stage was almost in darkness but this led to him being unable to see the sheet; mind you he still kept the sun glasses on. I also got the feeling that he was making up a new version of Turquoise Days on purpose just to be awkward.

This messing around actually had no effect on the impact of the music. Heaven Up Here is just as much, if not more about Will Sergeant’s guitar sound than any vocal histrionics. My memories of this gig will be about those unique, characteristic sounds and the atmosphere that they create; anything else is incidental.

All I Want faded away and the band took a break before returning for a familiar mini-set of crowd-pleasers Lips Like Sugar, Bring On The Dancing Horses, Nothing Lasts Forever, The Killing Moon, and The Cutter.

As an event, a spectacle and an exercise in nostalgia this gig was fantastic but as an example of where the seminal album gravy train is going I think it should mark the end of the process as it should for many bands. As much as I enjoyed the night, next time the old stuff should be mixed with the new. They still have it in them.

Thanks once again to Bunnymen Manager Peter Byrne who sorted out the glitches with the guest list — cheers Pete.

Set List

Going Up
Stars Are Stars
Pride
Monkeys
Crocodiles
Rescue
Villiers Terrace
Pictures on My Wall
All That Jazz
Happy Death Men

Show of Strength
With a Hip
Over the Wall
It Was a Pleasure
A Promise
Heaven Up Here
The Disease
All My Colours
No Dark Things
Turquoise Days
All I Want
—-
Lips Like Sugar
Bring On The Dancing Horses
Nothing Lasts Forever
The Killing Moon
The Cutter

Review – Ian Gelling
Photos – Ian Dunn

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