Echo from the past

For about ten years now – since reunions of iconic Eighties and Nineties bands first began to catch on – groups whose past is greater than their present have made a habit of playing live concerts of key albums from their careers. Now Echo & the Bunnymen, one of the British founders of post-punk, are going on tour with their first two albums – indeed, not just one but two.

Crocodiles, dating from 1980, and Heaven Up Here, which came out a year later, are new-wave classics that – along with the work of the Cure and Joy Division – cast a dark shadow over the Eighties. Their mix of gloomy post-punk and Doors-style psychedelia sounded very fresh and dynamic back then. Frontman Ian McCulloch and guitarist Will Sergeant, the two remaining members of the original group, only meet up onstage these days – their relationship, it seems, is a purely business one, with Sergeant seeing McCulloch as an arrogant jerk – but on their day these Liverpudlians are capable of effortlessly blowing us away with their razor-sharp guitar riffs, heavy bass lines, and doom-laden lyrics.

Echo & the Bunnymen 20/1, 20.00, €25/28, ANCIENNE BELGIQUE, boulevard Anspachlaan 110, Brussel/Bruxelles,
02-548.24.24, info@abconcerts.be, www.abconcerts.be