Echo and the Bunnymen | Over The Wall | Live | 1981

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Description

Enhanced archive footage of Echo and the Bunnymen performing live in the U.S., edited and synced to a soundboard of Over The Wall, recorded live in Holland. Footage and audio both originate from the 1981 Heaven Up Here tour.

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Forty years ago today, the 12th of December 1981, was the final date of the 100 or so gigs Echo and the Bunnymen played that year promoting their second album Heaven Up Here.

Towards the end of the tour, on the 8th of December 1981, the band played a show at London’s Hammersmith Palais. I was a young teenager at that show - the band, the crowd, the event was the coolest thing I’d ever experienced. It was to be the first of many times I would see Echo and the Bunnymen during the Eighties.

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The Heaven Up Here album and its accompanying tour, was the Bunnymen’s artistic and stylistic peak, in my opinion. They would continue to produce and perform great music for the next several years, but they never again scaled the heights of their 1981 output, by my estimation.

Heaven up Here was released on the 30th of May 1981. It was an immediate critical and commercial success, becoming Echo and the Bunnymen's first Top 10 release when it reached number 10 on the UK Albums Chart. It was also the band's first entry into the United States albums charts reaching number 184 on the Billboard 200.

The tour promoting Heaven Up Here began prior to the album’s release, on April 24th 1981 at Nottingham’s Rock City. The tour continued through the UK, to Europe, Australia, New Zealand, two visits to the U.S., and finally a second tour of the UK, culminating at the University of Leicester, on the 12th of December 1981.

Footage from the period is scarce. No official live or promo videos were produced, there were only a very few TV appearances (that still survive and are in circulation at least) and there is almost no known live footage of note. And so if as I am, you are a big fan of the band during the era, this glimpse into the Heaven Up Here tour is special.

The footage utilised here originates from a 1981 Bunnymen show at a venue called The Rusty Nail, in Sunderland, Massachusetts. I have been unable to find any reference to the show anywhere, so the recording date is unknown to me. The footage was uploaded to YouTube in 2014 on the channel Hoods30. It is shot from a single camera angle, in low-definition black & white. However, it is really well shot and timed; very obviously by someone familiar with the band, and the song. According to Hoods30, it was part of a student university project filming gigs around the area.

On that upload, Mark Chesak comments: I recall the Echo show was shot with a single camera, BW, maybe on reel to real 1/2 inch video tape, by a friend (Allison Marx now Allison Strine) at The Rusty Nail in Sunderland, MA. I worked for The Union Video Center back in the day at UMASS and this tape got heavy airplay on our little two monitor cable system in the Student Union.

The original Hoods30 upload can be found here: https://youtu.be/VWSmBOT35AM

The audio is from a Bunnymen show at the Concertgebouw de Vereeniging, in Nijmegen, Netherlands on June 2nd, 1981. The quality is basically outstanding, and was recorded by VPRO for broadcast on KRO-FM, Holland.

The footage was optimized using all the digital technologies at my disposal and the result was edited and painstakingly synced to my tweaked version of the Nijmegen audio.

Thanks for watching, hope you dig it!

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Dedicated to V
“Come on and hold me tight”

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Credits

Video:
Echo & The Bunnymen - Live in Sunderland (1981) • https://youtu.be/VWSmBOT35AM • Shot at The Rusty Nail, Sunderland, Massachusetts • 1981

Audio:
Echo & the Bunnymen • Over The Wall • Recorded live at the Concertgebouw de Vereeniging, in Nijmegen, Netherlands • 2 June 1981 • Recorded by VPRO for KRO-FM, Holland

Musicians:
Vocals, Guitar • Ian McCulloch
Lead Guitar • Will Sergeant
Bass • Les Pattinson
Drums • Pete de Freitas
Synthesiser •

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