"I've sung that song about 5000 times. I still get the words wrong....."
Here's an audience recording from October of 2007, which was shared on the band's official forum by James R. Many thanks to you for making this available way back when, Sir. Please note that the files were MP3s when they were posted, I haven't done any conversion here myself.
Support on the night in Bristol was from The Kissaway Trail and Ra Ra Riot.
Support on the night in Bristol was from The Kissaway Trail and Ra Ra Riot.
As a band Editors were fully road-worthy at this point, having previously endured the extensive Back Room campaign, almost to the detriment of their creative abilities. One thing that you sometimes get from these shows at the very beginning of their residency in the arena of dark, subversive pop was the necessity to throw in some b-sides to make up the running time. Ordinarily this would mean you'd end up hearing some filler, dropped in to pad things out a little. However, very much like Suede before them Editors have some incredible b-sides. There's a few of them that don't ever get played, like Come Share the View (ahhh, but do you prefer the Snowfield or Editors version?), and then there's a few that when they do get aired again just have an immediate impact. Tracks like Colours, Find Yourself a Safe Place and at Bristol in October 2007, Heads in Bags. The song was a part of the single release of Blood and it's one of those pieces of music that perfectly sums up a moment in time and the age range of its authors. Loud, frustrated/anxious and delivered entirely with a straight face.
"You can't win..."
It's not the kind of song I would imagine being written by Editors now, purely because they've refined and expanded their abilities to articulate their musical and lyrical ideas. That's not to take anything away from Heads in Bags at all, because it still manages to land the punch that was intended even all these years after it first got released. It's another example of the band as a unit, where the sum total is as powerful as it is because of everyone's contributions Ed's drums, King Leetch's running bass lines and the two guitars battling it out at the front of it all. That's the thing about listening back to old Editors gigs; everything you hear was part of the foundation which they built to support the heights they're reaching now. That's what makes these items so precious to me as a fan, and if you feel the same...
The Setlist
Intro - download here
An End Has A Start - download here
Bones - download here
Bullets - download here
Blood - download here
The Weight Of The World - download here
Escape The Nest - download here
Banging Heads - download here
All Sparks - download here
When Anger Shows - download here
Spiders - download here
Lights - download here
The Racing Rats - download here
Heads In Bags - download here
Munich - download here
Encore Break - download here
You Are Fading - download here
Smokers - download here
Fingers In The Factories - download here
All in a zip - download here
brought to you with lots and lots of lemming-love :) x
