Echo and the Bunnymen • Over The Wall • Live at the Pavilion Gardens, Buxton • 17 January 1981 • Remastered
Musicians:
Ian McCulloch • vocals, guitar
Will Sergeant • lead guitar
Les Pattinson • bass
Pete de Freitas • drums
Video Source:
Shine So Hard • Directed by John Smith • Produced by Bill Butt • Director of Photography Patrick Duval • Released 13th of August 1981
Audio Source:
Shine So Hard EP • Produced by Bill Drummond & Hugh Jones • Released 10th April 1981
Over The Wall
This is Echo & the Bunnymen’s Over The Wall, performed live in early 1981, sourced from the Shine So Hard movie, and it’s accompanying soundtrack EP.
Over The Wall, although it was unreleased at the time of the Buxton show, was well known to the fans. It was not actually a new song, and even predated the July 1980 debut album, Crocodiles. It had been one of the tracks included on the band’s second John Peel session, recorded on the 22nd of May 1980. Produced by John Etchells and engineered by Mike Robinson, the Peel Session version of Over The Wall, contains a lot of the elements of the final Heaven Up Here cut. But it lacks the majesty and power – and the final apocalyptic two minutes - of the Heaven Up Here version.
As Bunnymen folklore tells it, often the tracks the band would debut as Peel Sessions, were in early stages of development, and sometimes had literally just be written: “With little money, the band used (the Peel Sessions) to demo new material. Many of the songs were written due to the fact a Peel session had been booked, not because the show loved the new songs...”- from the sales notes of the long overdue and very welcome forthcoming album of the complete Echo and the Bunnymen Peel Sessions 1979 – 1983, which will be released in September, this year.
By the time of the Buxton show, in early January 1981, the structure of Over The Wall was now very similar to the final Heaven Up Here version. The album, produced by Hugh Jones, who had co-produced Shine So Hard, was recorded just a couple of months later, in March ‘81. On Heaven Up Here, the songs were filled out with "guitar overdubs, keyboard glints, vocal multitracking and atmospheric vapours" – music journalist Simon Reynolds. At the time of it’s release, Julian Cope from rival Liverpudlian outfit, The Teardrop Explodes, in a rare moment of humility in those days, stated that the first three tracks of Heaven Up Here (Show of Strength, With a Hip, Over The Wall) were as good as any music ever made. “On Heaven Up Here, Over The Wall, the album’s epic centerpiece appears in more subtle, textured form than the Buxton live version. An exercise in controlled power and smouldering aggression, McCulloch’s lyrics erupt in a fabulously ominous chorus: “Over the wall, hand in hand / over the wall, watch us fall.” – Dave Simpson, in The Guardian, 2017.
Shine So Hard
In late 1980 and early 1981, Echo and the Bunnymen were promoting their debut album Crocodiles. A concert held at the Pavilion Gardens in Buxton, Derbyshire on 17 January 1981, was used as the basis for a short film called Shine So Hard, that was commissioned by Warner Brothers, the bands label. The young experimental art film director, John Smith was chosen to direct.
"I had no connection with the Bunnymen or with Bill Butt (the band’s lighting engineer and the producer of Shine So Hard). But my friend Patrick Duval, who shot and co-edited the film with me, had been an art school undergraduate with Bill a few years previously, and had remained in touch. Bill approached Patrick and asked him if he knew any interesting experimental filmmakers with a union ticket and Patrick recommended me. I’d never made a music film before but decided to give it a go.
"Warners thought they were just going to get a short promo for one song. We somehow managed to stretch the budget to make a 30-minute extravaganza. I’ve got very fond memories of a week with the band in Buxton, shooting the film, which was quite an adventure for me as a young filmmaker. Warner's really hated the film, especially because you don’t get to see the band’s faces until half way through. It was all much too weird for them. I can still remember sitting in a preview theatre with some very unhappy men in suits" – John Smith, 2019
So here is another installment of my remasters, of the four complete live tracks from John Smith’s film, edited and synced to the 2003 remastered audio from the Shine So Hard EP.
Hope you dig it!
I don't own the rights, and I'm not making any money out of this etc. Just a fan making videos for other fans.
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