by macshack » Wed Feb 09, 2022 2:51 am
TIMES REVIEW
★★★☆☆
At a returning concert for the band that best encapsulated 1980s alternative attitude and atmosphere, a set list featuring favourites from the classic albums Crocodiles and Heaven Up Here certainly delivered for the fans. The guitarist Will Sergeant carried the songs along, Sixties garage rock spirit combining with shimmering ambience, with enough accuracy to take the audience back to their teenage bedrooms. But the singer Ian McCulloch seemed to have it in for Londoners. “Everyone here from London?” he asked, behind ever present shades and overcoat. When the reply came in the affirmative, he concluded, “Sad.” “I said hey, London, take a walk on the Merseyside,” he suggested, during a rendition of Lou Reed’s Walk on the Wild Side. Attempts by audience members to sing along were summarised as “shite”.
This kind of thing has been par for the course for “Mac the Mouth” since the early Eighties, but the difference is that back then McCulloch was the coolest guy around, blessed with a voice that soared with the doomed romance of youth. Now, at 62, his couldn’t-care-less attitude was not so attractive, particularly as his voice croaked to a halt quite a few times. Bedbugs and Ballyhoo, with its Doors-like keyboard motif, was a highlight; it morphed into an actual Doors song, Roadhouse Blues, followed by a much altered rendition of Bowie’s The Jean Genie. But much of the set was let down by McCulloch appearing not to want to be on stage at all.
The final section brought back the energy and reminded us why Echo & the Bunnymen remain such a beloved band. The Cutter was remarkable, its Beatles-like eastern opening giving way to a psychedelic punk masterpiece that sounds as mysterious as ever. The band’s two encores were Lips Like Sugar and, finally, The Killing Moon, one of the greatest songs of the Eighties, on which McCulloch channelled a higher power as he sang about “fate, up against your will” and Sergeant’s elegant music showed that it is possible to write a stadium rock anthem with dignity and restraint, something U2, Echo & the Bunnymen’s great rivals, never quite managed.
A patchy concert, but one with plenty of reminders that we were watching one of the most important bands in the history of alternative music.
