THE KILLING MOON

I'm reading my way through the Chris Adams book Turquoise Days, The Weird World of Echo & The Bunnymen, the story behind the band. It just so happened that I reached that point in the book where the events of 1985 were discussed, specifically the June 21 show at the Glastonbury Festival. This was a year after they had released Ocean Rain, took an extended period of time off but then went on a tour through Scandinavia for the purpose of getting back into the mode of writing new songs.

I had a copy of the Glastonbury performance so it was natural that I would pull it out this evening to "experience" what I had been reading about. It was raining during their performance in 1985 and coincidentally it had just stopped raining during this chilly evening here at home, contributing to the experience of "being there" before the stage.

An excellent recording, both the quality of the recording and their onstage performance. That's what I was waiting for all week and I was in no way disappointed.

This is a review of the show clipped from Chris Adams book:

The Bunnymen are made for cold wind and rainy occasions. Moreover, this being their only major show of the year, they needed to be good. Instead they were magnificent, and transformed a major disaster into celebration. McCulloch shook the audience by the hip and bit the nose off any moaner with a vocal performance to match with classic Echo. The band ripped apart golden oldies like the Rolling Stones "Paint It Black", Bob Dylan's "It's All Over Now Baby Blue" (sung with a perfect Jagger drawl), The Cramp's "Garbage Man," James Brown's "Sex Machine," and The Doors "Soul Kitchen" and made them sound better than the originals. It was pitch black and pouring rain when they left the stage at 9p.m., but Noah could have been building his Ark for all the crowd cared. No one would have bothered to get on. -No. 1, 1985

Tie to the present
Catapult fires when cord's cut
Launched into the past

What's old is now new
Reality's edge is blurred
Steps into the past

Pages in a book
A story set to music
The decades erased

Cuts down to the bone
Music exposes the heart
Knife within their hand

A dreamy landscape
Closed eyes see in the darkness
Sound paints bright pictures

Locked in their embrace
Burning up the spotlit stage
There between his ears

Blocks out the whole world
Focused on the one moment
Hears only music

Volume turned to high
His headphone reality
Feels only the sound

Path to salvation
Snow to sand between his toes
He's found his lost way

Grasping trucks bumper
The tequila wearing off
Falling back to Earth

Landed back on Earth
Journey can't last forever
Alien comes home

Download it here:

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=661TIBR4

This past week I was searching around on the web when I came across other people's performance of EATB's The Killing Moon. What I did here was assemble a bunch of those renditions, starting off with the original, followed by the performance of others of varying quality. It is a beautiful song and one of my favorites.