Echo and the Bunnymen - Legends bring a dark cloud over Cornbury!

July 6th 2013

Oxfordshire, Cornbury Festival, UK

***1/2

Dark moody Indie / Goth's depress Cornbury!

Echo and the Bunnymen ***1/2 (Songbird Stage) have been going for years and are a little out of place on this year’s bill but they have played this festival before, but I think their dreary brand of Indie / Goth doesn’t work in a festival filled to the brim with the English aristocracy.

Opening up with the grip taking ‘Going Up’ they start of well and the screeching guitars provided by long time member Will Sergeant is really outstanding and makes this song sound as good as it always has done and continue it with great versions of‘Do it Clean’ and ‘Bring on the dancing Horses‘, but songs like ‘Seven Seas’ just sound a little depressing and dreary and not right for the hot day.

Ian McCulloch though isn’t very articulate spending most of the set just standing in the same position just starring down at the audience with contempt. He is acting like he really doesn’t want to be their but his voice sounds superb as good as it does on all the album in the bands back catalogue. This is a set of classic Bunnymen set filled to the brim with classic material and if you’re a fan you would have loved it but I am not sure a lot of people in attendance really knew the material.

I personally quite enjoyed the set, but I have been into the band for years and own most of their albums including the recent brilliant box set ‘ ‘ that they brought out recently. They get a few people moving when they hit ‘The Killing Moon’ a song made famous recently by the film ‘Donnie Darko’. Ending their set with the Lou Reed cover ‘Walk on the wild Side’ and ‘Lips like Sugar’ you know you seen an influential band that you should check out more songs by but this was not the place to hear them.