Along with being one of the best bands of the 1980s, able to conjure up swirling dark clouds of moody psychedelic music built around
Ian McCulloch's resonant vocals and songs that sink their hooks deep under the flesh,
Echo & the Bunnymen were also a hell of a cover band, especially on a concert stage.
It's All Live Now, an album culled from two mid-'80s live shows, proves that fact conclusively over the course of eight well-chosen covers
the Bunnymen make their own. Seven are taken from a 1985 show in Sweden and find them in fine fighting form as they slash and crash through well-known songs by
the Rolling Stones ("Paint It Black"),
Television ("Friction"), and
the Doors ("Soul Kitchen"), deeper cuts by
the Modern Lovers ("She Cracked") and
the Velvet Underground ("Run Run Run"), as well as the jangling
Dylan classic "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue" and the garage rock nugget "Action Woman" by
the Litter. Will Sergeant's guitar playing is especially brilliant on these cuts; he sometimes tends to sublimate his skills as a lead player in favor of creating atmosphere within the songs, but here he can really cut loose. Another song from the show, a ripping version of "Crocodiles," is included too. Two more songs are taken from a 1983 show, a slow-burn take on
the Velvets' "Heroin," which a cheeky
Mac introduces as "one of the first songs we ever wrote," and an extended romp through "Do It Clean," which features
Mac, in one of his trademark bits of stagecraft, singing snippets of the old chestnut "When I Fall in Love" and James Brown's "Sex Machine." All the tracks were included on the 2001 Crystal Days box set, but they sound really good extracted and presented as a live document of a great band operating right close to its peak. ~ Tim Sendra