Cometh the hour, cometh the man with the mic. For those of you who couldn't make it, here's GaryUK's audio document of Editors' return to full live action in Birmingham on the 4th March 2018. The quality is everything you'd hope for, meaning you get a much better appreciation of the material. Many thanks again to you for sharing, Gary. It's appreciated.
The timing of this show meant that it happened five days before VI OLENCE was released, and introduced fans to some new music from that album in a live environment. We'd been given a small taste about a year earlier when Editors played Southside Festival in 2017, when they aired Cold, Hallelujah and Magazine for the first time but this went further and revealed a little more.
I remember above all else when I first heard this show, that there was a lot of percussive/concussive sounds on the new songs. In Hallelujah for example, they actually got Ed drumming behind the hand-clap break and it stops the song from losing any of the momentum that built up prior to that. There was also extra guitar and vocals on Magazine which made it bigger still. Given what we were hearing, it seemed that they had decided that lazy/dreamy and slow was not the way forward on this occasion, with everything being hammered home rather than allowed to float into the audience consciousness. Physical violence distilled in musical form, which is fitting given the continual external pummelling of the heart and soul that acted as the inspiration for E6.
There are little tells that this was still the band road testing the new songs, things that were tried and then erased as they became more accustomed to playing them. Listen to Hallelujah, and you'll hear Tom repeating his "I got lucky this time when I offered atonement" refrain in shotgun fashion. There's also the accessions that had yet to be included, such as Tom's future, regular F-bomb during Darkness at the Door. These are the little components that are either jarring to us hardcore fans in their absence, or strangely curious in their presence.
Things to listen out for that make live shows so much more fun than listening to a professional recording:-
The loose, streetwalking sounds of Justin Lockey's guitar being allowed to feed back during Sugar.
Ed's temporarily disappearing snare drum during the first part of Lights, ironically just as Tom says "I've got a million things to say".
Elliott's more audible rhythm guitar during An End Has a Start, and his backing vocals accompanying Tom on ITLAOTE (I'm sure they've always been there, just maybe not this prominent?).
Consistently smooth (and sometimes funky) basslines from Russell.
The first introduction to the world of a new "blend" between songs, as Violence bleeds into No Harm, with an older one in the form of Papillon and Marching Orders still present.
The slight screw up in the piano intro to Papillon.
Tom holding and bending the "with a clenched fist" lyrics after the second chorus of Magazine. It sounds incredible.
Really, really aggressive shouts of "Hey!" during Cold. It's almost like the more elderly members of the band just spotted one of those damn, punk teenagers playing football on their lawns.
A member of the crowd gently, and respectfully expressing their admiration for Tom's physical appearance just before Sugar starts.
Enjoy the music ;)
The Setlist
Intro - download here
Hallelujah (So Low) - download here
A Ton of Love - download here
Darkness at the Door - download here
Formaldehyde - download here
Violence - download here
No Harm - download here
Sugar - download here
Lights - download here
Blood - download here
Munich - download here
An End Has A Start - download here
Nothingness - download here
ITLAOTE - download here
ERM=BD - download here
Cold - download here
Magazine - download here
Ocean of Night - download here
Smokers (acoustic) - download here
The Racing Rats - download here
Papillon - download here
Marching Orders - download here
All in a Zip - download here
brought to you with lots and lots of lemming-love :)x
