Echo and The Bunnymen, Bristol Harbour Festival

Bristol Harbour Festival is an annual event that takes over central Bristol for a weekend every summer, from music and circus skills to waterborne events there is something for everybody. As an added treat this year a new paid event was added at the Harbourside Amphitheatre featuring Echo and The Bunnymen as the headline act. A great idea, although not as well attended as might be hoped, maybe people are too used to the Harbour Festival being a free event, perhaps something to be looked at for future years.

But onto the review, despite being only half full the people there were obviously passionate fans, mostly middle aged and looking to rekindle their love of the iconic band. There is a reason some bands can keep going for years and they just have that x factor (not that X Factor) where they can command a stage from the moment they walk on and grab your attention for the next hour or so. All this achieved with Ian McCulloch holding court as their enigmatic frontman.

I like a band that have their own style and when you hear a song you know instantly who it is by and this is something that can be said of Echo and The Bunnymen, a style but unique captivating sounds. From opening track ‘Rescue’ through to the main hits “don’t tell me that my ship is coming in” well the harbour seems a perfect place for ‘Nothing Lasts Forever’ which was interspersed with ‘Walk on the Wildside’ by Lou Reed. This was followed by ‘Bring on the Dancing Horses’ and possible their signature tune ‘The Killing Moon’ which cut through the evening air as a mass singalong.

After just over an hour it was all over, it seemed like a short set, but was pretty much perfect throughout. For an opening night of a full weekend of fun it seemed a perfect fit, a classic band that people know the tunes. A band that are still going strong after forming in Liverpool nearly forty years ago, maybe a more contemporary band would have bought the crowds, but there were plenty of crowds across Bristol all weekend and the Summer Series fills that role in Bristol. So tonight was about something different and pretty amazing at the same time, the opening act of a buzzing weekend.