Review: Echo & The Bunnymen, Harbourside

Echo and the Bunnymen were an interesting choice of band to open the Bristol Harbour Festival.  They’re an archetypal Eighties bedsit-and-indie-club band, with no hint of reggae or jazz-funk fusion to get the crowd partying as if they’d been on the Westons or Red Stripe all weekend. However as a gig it worked pretty well. The band played a greatest hits set, the crowd responded enthusiastically in the main and nobody near me complained, although apparently there were some in the audience muttering about the band only playing for an hour.  

The band kicked off with Rescue and Villiers Terrace from debut album Crocodiles which was a surprise to those expecting one of the big hits to open. Wat wasn’t a surprise was Ian McCulloch’s voice sounding a bit ragged round the edges: too many on stage cigs over the past thirty odd years taking their toll. 

However as the set progressed his voice and the overall sound improved and by the time they hit their stride with Over the Wall and All My Colours from Heaven Up Here the massive sound and epic scope of the songs made up for the odd missed note. 

The remainder of the set included pretty much all of the Bunnymen’s hits, The Cutter, The Killing Moon, Never Stop, the still irritating Bedbugs and Ballyhoo and poppier, later tunes Bring on the Dancing Horses and Nothing Lasts Forever. All were performed with a workmanlike intensity by original guitarist Will Sergeant and the unknown and unnamed second guitarist, bassist, keyboardist and drummer, as McCulloch stood centre stage and surveyed the crowd.

While the band may have lost some swagger there’s still an arrogance about McCulloch which harks back to their heyday when brigades of long coat wearing, Boots Extra Firm Hold hairspray dependent indie fans wanted to be him or be with him. 

This arrogance or maybe just contrariness may explain omitting two of their biggest hits Seven Seas and Ocean Rain from the set on the opening night of the Harbour Festival, although perhaps including those songs may have been a little obvious and whiffing of cheddar. 

This may not have been one of the most scintillating performances ever given by the Bunnymen but they’re a band in their fifties, playing to a crowd of their peers – did anyone them to have energy of Iggy Pop? That said, the audience may have expected a little more interaction between songs than mumbled platitudes about Bristol from singer Ian McCulloch.

Whether the Bunnymen are at all relevant or exciting in 2016 is debatable. Some might say they ceased to be relevant in the late eighties but it didn’t really matter such was the quality of their songs. And in this age of disposable, half-assed pop tunes, good songs are worth a shortish set and a few quid of anyone’s money, no matter how old the band.