Heart of a Punk Soul of a Rasta

Last time I saw E&TB it was for "Siberia" at the Birmingham Academy in 2006. It was all back lighting and shadows that night, in fact I never actually saw McCulloch's face the whole evening even though I was standing less than ten feet away from him. And he only spoke once and that was to bollock the rhythm guitarist for fucking up the intro to "Nothing Lasts Forever".

Tonight at the Wulfrun the Bunnymen's performance and the adroitness of McCulloch could not be questioned. They ripped through the material with pin point precision with time enough to aim several asinine jibes at the ability of the road crew, and during the first encore of "Nothing Lasts Forever/Walk on the Wild Side" for McCulloch to brand a certain Wolvo punter a "musical cretin" for not knowing where to sing "Doo, doo, doo, doo, doo, doo, doo, doo" in "Walk on the Wild Side".

Thank fuck for that! Mac the Mouth is back! He was right though, they were "Doo, doo, doo, doo, doo, doo, doo, doo ing" in the wrong place. The Bunnymen returned a second time to blast out "Cutter" - majesty - crescendo - ecstasy - gone.

Did I get my book back, did I f*ck, Greg couldn't find the geezer in question.
Did I get the new album, did I f*ck, the merchandise had none to sell.
Did I get some "Heaven Up Here", yeah some, but more importantly I got my faith restored.

Back in the day SOUNDS got it pretty right - except the Ertha Kitt bit! Meow!

Now wait a minute you should be saying "what about Exit Calm Ed, the Bunnymen support?" Well Exit Calm played for half an hour and I stood and listened. They could be the greatest band to come out of South Yorkshire but how could I judge. They were back lit (ahhh) so I couldn't see any of the band members faces, and the mix was so impenetrably poor it was impossible for me to hear a word the lead singer uttered. In the old days I'd have gone off and when asked what the support band were like, I'd have said "not much cop", but today there is a remedy for the malady, its called myspace (apparently). I went there, listened, and found out there was something going on behind the shadows and beneath the mix, something vaguely Verve like. I hope and pray it was a case of "first night of the tour" sound wise and mere aberration lighting wise. Could be giants - just couldn't tell.