Here's another extraordinary job done by the Archive's main live recording supplier, Mr GaryUK. This time it's an audio document of the band's show at the Ironworks, Inverness during March of 2010. The sound quality is everything you'd expect, which means that another piece of Editors' history is preserved to the standard that it should be. Thanks to you, Gary. We really appreciate your work ;)
So, to the show. Some weirdness went down during Bullets, as you'll notice Mr Smith's vocals drop away completely towards the end. This was due to some tool in the audience throwing a cup of something at him, which bounces off him but appears to get fluid in his eyes. Once the song's over, he makes a point that if he can't see, he can't sing. He then says that "You get more than one strike though, I'm not Morrissey" referring to La Moz walking offstage during a gig in Liverpool 2009 after just two songs when he got hit by a bottle. I had this confirmed by our man on the scene that night, Gary, and there's even a clip of it on youtube, as provided by guppy1291 (thank you for sharing). The quality isn't brilliant but if you check out the footage from around the 2 minute mark onward, you'll see the object land and the reaction afterwards :-
That unpleasantness aside, you can really hear the vocal effect when Tom's sings during ITLAOTE, which brings it much closer in sound the studio version of that track. Similarly, there's also some delay on Tom's vocals at the end of Camera, and the way that Chris' guitar is processed makes it shimmer all across that song. Beautiful stuff. I was actually listening to the demo of Camera this morning and it's still surprising just how different the final version of that ended up being. The Back Room take is so much more nuanced, possessing so much more drama than the demo. It was a good indicator that even at an early stage they weren't averse to change, and to take something that may have sounded finished and give it a spin in a different direction.
I have mentioned before that I believe there's actually a reverse-demo process that goes on when Editors write. The songs that end up on studio albums are just extended demos, whereas the live takes can often end up being so much more close to the definitive, final renditions. It's happened with When Anger Shows, Nothing and 2 Hearted Spider to name but a few and I expect it will keep happening for as long as they continue playing live. That's essentially where they do their best work. Speaking of which...
stream it here
MP3s
In This Light and on This Evening - download here
Lights - download here
An End Has a Start - download here
You Don't Know Love - download here
Bones - download here
A Life as a Ghost - download here
Eat Raw Meat = Blood Drool - download here
Camera - download here
Blood - download here
Escape the Nest - download here
Last Day - download here
Bullets - download here
The Big Exit - download here
The Racing Rats - download here
Munich - download here
Smokers - download here
Encore - download here
No Sound but the Wind - download here
Bricks and Mortar - download here
Papillon - 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
