Echo and the Bunnymen at Albert Hall
Johnny James, Managing Editor
One of the most influential British bands in modern history, Echo and the Bunnymen are celebrating “40 years of magical songs” at the majestic Albert Hall on 16 and 25 February.
Formed in Liverpool in 1978, Echo and the Bunnymen’s dark, swirling fusion of gloomy post-punk and Doors-inspired psychedelia soon marked them out as one of the era’s seminal bands. Driven by the majestic voice and outsized persona of singer Ian McCulloch and the frequently brilliant guitar work of Will Sergeant, the band started off as an angular post-punk group, before dramatically expanding their vision on 1984’s Ocean Rain, which saw them backed by a 35-piece orchestra.
That album served up some of the best songs to come out of what’s regarded now as the ’80s New Wave era, and they’ve stood the test of time; only recently ‘Nocturnal Me’ featured on the culturally phenomenal Stranger Things, while ‘My Kingdom’ and ‘The Killing Moon’ (“The greatest song ever written” according to the notoriously modest Ian McCulloch) found a place on 13 Reasons Why. Mixing surreal poetry with Eastern-influenced guitar lines, symphonic majesty with abrasive pop structures, the album simply presents a world of its own.
After stripping back their sound for 1987’s self-titled album, which produced the enduring hit ‘Lips Like Sugar’, the band ran into problems and experienced tragedy (like the death of drummer Pete de Freitas), but eventually McCulloch and Sergeant cemented a musical bond that cracked but never shattered over the course of two decades of albums – some introspective gems like 1999’s What Are You Going to Do with Your Life?, some cinematic dramas like 2014’s Meteorites.
On their rescheduled 2022 UK tour, Echo and the Bunnymen will take a trip through their discography, now made up of 11 studio albums, released across 40 years. From the aforementioned ‘The Killing Moon’ to Porcupine ’s The Cutter’ to fan-favourite ‘All My Colours’, you can expect to hear close to all of the Top 20 hits that cemented their legacy.
Ian McCulloch:
“Well then, here are the rescheduled dates for our 2022 UK tour. I can’t wait to be out there with the band on all those stages in all those towns and cities, doing what I love most, playing our songs to our brilliant fans and, hopefully, making all our lives a little bit happier along the way”.
