Tuesday 20 May 2014

Screaming from beneath the waves...

The other night I finally got to see one of my fave bands ever, Echo & The Bunnymen at Oxford O2. I have always liked them, however, in more recent years I have delved into their early work, and the deeper I delved, the more I adored them. 



I would say their earlier work is the best and I was apprehensive about seeing them live, thinking they wouldn't play that much old material. 


Ocean Rain and Crocodiles are masterpieces in my opinion, I also like the s/t album and I liked the stuff they released in the 90's as that's when I first got into them Nothing ever lasts forever era. 


I hadn't been to the venue before, but I had heard good things from my bro, who had seen Dinosaur Jr. there. We arrived very early, as it was advertised as an early gig, over by 10. 


I've never been one for standing right at the front, but for The Bunnymen after waiting all these years to see them I decided to. So we got to the venue for doors at 6, and got a place right on the barrier, at the front.


Support was from Black Submarine, which feature Nick McCabe and Si Jones formerly of the Verve. I already had the album which I like, they didn't disappoint they are very very 90s sounding though. They buzzed through a set of tracks from the album. They are very bass driven and sound like a less dancey Lamb, elements of Portishead too. The venue was pretty empty though which didn't create much atmosphere due to  the early start.





The Bunnymen kept us waiting and I wouldn't have expected anything else. About half an hour after the stage time, by now the venue was pretty packed. The lights went down, a choral piece kicked in loud.... The unmistakable sillohette of Ian McCulloch Swaggered to centre stage, through the smoke and blue glow.




The opened with the title track from the new record Meteorites the sound was pretty massive, they then kicked in to one of my fave tracks from Ocean Rain Nocturnal Me it sounded banging. They rattled through a set containing some of my fave tracks, Mac was struggling all the way through with a sore throat he was drinking honey, yet smoking an electric fag and caning the red. He had a bit of banter with the crowd, when a few Man City chants came over. 

I personally thought they sounded great and loved every minute they had to restart one song a few times as he wasn't happy that people were talking and in the end scratched it all together.







Stand out tracks included: My Kingdom, The Cutter, Killing Moon and they closed the set with Ocean Rain, probably my favourite which I had given up hope of them playing by encore two.


























"All hands on deck at dawn, 
Sailing to sadder shores, 
Your port in my heavy storms, 
Harbours the blackest thoughts."


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