The three videos being shared here were all donated by Mari who is a friend of the Archive from way back, many thanks again to you for your generosity.
When we talk about Editors and the Special Relationship, people usually think of Belgium which has been switched on and present right from the very start of the band's career. However, there are actually multiple special relationships between Editors and different countries around the world, and one where the mutual affection is particularly strong is Italy. The Italian Pop Kids have been flying the flag for this group for years now, and they always show up to support them whenever they play in their country. At their show in Bologna on the 29th November 2018, Editors demonstrated just how special Italian crowds are when they hit the audience with three events within a show that almost lasted 2 hours. That length of time in itself is unusual, and it's verging on the kind of timekeeping that The Cure used to do before they extended their sets even further.
Firstly, the full band rendition of Nothing was reintroduced into the running order for the first time in a long time. It was last referenced was by Tom in a recent Instagram post where he expressed some regret at not playing the Clint Mansell orchestral arrangement live, instead playing what he viewed as this "diluted" version. Whether you agree with him or not (and I would have to agree that the idea of a full orchestra playing it would be amazing), Nothing delivered by all 5 Editors onstage is still an exhilarating thrill to watch and listen to. It's great to see they haven't locked it away in the box that contains tracks like The Pulse, Escape the Nest, When Anger Shows and You Don't Know Love just yet. That was surprise number 1 in Bologna, but it was next two that were a real shock.
Tom played the beginning of Back Room classic Fall solo and acoustically for what I think might be the first time ever (Hannah, if you know different then drop me a line because I'm drawing a blank here). I have almost 850 posts in place at the Archive so it's possible that I missed it but I don't recall him doing this for as long as I've been ruthlessly collecting and sharing Editors material. Take a look at Maccum's setlist and you'll see that it was originally supposed to be a single, unnamed acoustic track to lead off the encore:-
It didn't turn out that way. Out of the blue, they decided to do something that if I'm right had never been done before and they chose to do it in Italy. Mr Smith ran through the first minute and a half of Fall and then The Weight which is another track that rarely gets an airing. This is a big deal. The next night they played a festival in Zagreb and both songs were gone again. So it may have been either a test to see how everyone reacts before they roll it out again later, or this really was a brief love letter to Italy.
What we have in this post are the three songs as filmed by Mari from right down the front, as well as an MP3 of that all too brief appearance of acoustic Fall. Enjoy the music ;)
Nothing
Fall (detail) acoustic
The Weight acoustic
brought to you with lots and lots of lemming-love :) x
