This took a little digging. Echo & the Bunnymen’s appearance on the Spanish music TV program La Edad de Oro is one of the great documents of the band at its height, the 1984 tour supporting their breathtaking and majestic masterpiece Ocean Rain. However, and maddeningly, every complete copy of it I’ve found online has a horrible and persistent sound glitch starting at about the 35-minute mark. It’s really bad, like deal-breakingly so, see for yourself if you like, but don’t say you weren’t warned.
The videos in this playlist from YouTube user kigonjiro aren’t the prettiest available, but those sound problems are FAR less present. Also, it’s broken down into a playlist that eliminates the interview segment (it’s at 11:30 in the above link if you want to watch it), which can be grating to sit through if you don’t speak Spanish. Which is fine, nobody in 1984 ever expected English-speaking audiences to see this. But the playlist format neatly segments everything and cuts out the dross.
One last thing before we get to the music—one of the reasons I so adore this show is that the stage setup gives the cameras better shots of the drummer then are usually seen in live videos, and the Bunnymen’s Pete de Freitas (RIP 1989) is just on fire here. But the whole band’s performance is great too, their energy is up, and singer Ian McCulloch is spot-on throughout.
1. The Cutter
2. The Killing Moon
3. All That Jazz
4. Do It Clean
5. Villiers Terrace
6. My Kingdom
7. Silver
8. All My Colours
9. Heads Will Roll
10. Thorn Of Crowns
11. Never Stop
12. Crocodiles
13. Rescue
And just because I’m feeling bonusy today, here’s a Brazilian TV appearance from 1987, on the tour for their self-titled album, the last LP recorded by their classic lineup. It includes some surprising cover choices, but even more surprising, there’s not a single song from the then brand-new LP performed here. HUH?
00:43 “Crocodiles”
05:41 Interview segment
06:10 “In The Midnight Hour” (Wilson Pickett)
09:13 “Seven Seas”
12:19 Interview segment
13:54 “The Killing Moon”
18:14 “Soul Kitchen” (Doors)
22:38 Interview segment
24:21 “The Cutter”
28:10 “Ocean Rain”
32:56 Interview segment
35:17 “Paint It Black” (Stones)
37:58 Interview segment
38:37 “Do It Clean”
Echo & the Bunnymen will release a new LP and tour Europe and the US in 2014.