Live: Echo and the Bunnymen’s Electric Performance at the O2 Academy, Leeds

Review of Echo and the Bunnymen’s electric performance at the o2 Academy – icons of the past whose music still insists its permanence and brilliance into 2022.

After roughly two years of live music taking what felt like a never-ending hiatus, The Bunnymen’s show at the o2 Academy on 5^th April would have been many of the audience’s first gig since before Covid – and what better gig to reintroduce oneself back into the live music scene with than the Liverpool legends we know as the Bunnymen.

The band first formed in Liverpool in 1978 whose early releases secured them their position as legends of the post-punk genre. Ever since then their evolving sound has proven its musical dynamism from rhythmic pop releases of ‘Songs to Learn to Sing’ (1985) to the moody melancholia that so characterizes the post-punk essence of their 1980 album ‘Crocodiles’. Although the band have proven their skill and versatility as musicians through their ventures into jazz, guitar pop and even psychedelia, they nonetheless stayed largely true to their post-punk essence at the academy with electric performances of their early releases.

Their fantastic ranges in sound and style were perfectly captured in the show as they dazzled the audience through consistently enigmatic performances ranging from well-loved post-punk classics like ‘Going Up’, to dabbling in jazzy undertones. Regardless of the genres the band meandered itself in, the atmosphere of each performance was consistently electric thanks to Will Sergeant’s skillful yet modest mastery of the guitar, which complimented Ian McCulloch’s unwavering, and insistent vocals. As well as performing many of their older and comfortably familiar releases, the band also treated the audience to a new song, ‘Brussels is haunted’, an upbeat number promising there’s more to come from The Bunnymen yet.