Ian McCulloch and the Prodigal Sons, 1989

"Suddenly there is something special, like a new start."

Happy birthday (5th May) to Ian “Mac” McCulloch.

Echo and the Bunnymen split up in 1988 after ten years together. A year later, Mac was touring with a new group. This was their debut gig.

From my memoir:

“In 1989 I interviewed Ian McCulloch for the first time. We met at a rehearsal studio in town where he was preparing for his first solo tour. The very first gig was going to be in Liverpool at the Bluecoat arts centre, with the official tour date later at the Royal Court. He anticipated that at the Bluecoat, ‘there will probably be a lot of friends, shouting.’ He was right.

I saw him at the party after the Bluecoat gig. It had felt like an event, and everyone was buzzing.

‘It was all right,’ I told him, which is Scouse for ‘it was good’.

‘All right? It was fantastic,’ he declared, clutching a champagne bottle.”

Great expectations

IAN MCCULLOCH AND THE PRODIGAL SONS

BLUECOAT ARTS CENTRE, LIVERPOOL

Melody Maker, October 28 1989

WELL, what did you expect? A new start? The past? Perfection? Mistakes? You could get all of these at the hometown debut solo gig. Heavy with expectation, the set didn't start well. "The Flickering Wall" (complete with lights flickering on the wall) and "The White Hotel" sounded good. Just good. They also sounded familiar.

If this had been a new band — no, an unknown band, because the Prodigal Sons are new—if I hadn't expected anything, I would have said they were good. The drums/guitars/keyboard mixture is powerfully layered or powerfully precise. On the most Bunnymen-like of the "Candleland" songs they don't sound sufficiently different to mean much themselves. It's good, but it's not mythical yet. Mac's hair and leather jacket don't say anything new. The band beat up a song happily. Things are rhythmically melodic (with a touch of Lou Reed) or toying with Doors' dynamics.

A ripple of welcome arrives with the opening chords of "Rescue". Is this all we expected? The few Bunnymen songs aren't necessary, and aren't necessarily a good idea, but they're only intrusive through audience reaction. Among the rest, they don't sound different enough to make any other difference. Mac quietly says, "Hello" and "Thanks for coming" and, more confidently, "I don't do that." He introduces the band, and remembers a dead friend. He spares his eventual jubilation for after the show.

There are pauses, like a warm-up gig. There are spectacular lights, like a big tour. Suddenly there is something special, like a new start.

"I Know You Well" is thrillingly direct. At their best, the "Candleland" songs are naked and shining as the angel backdrop. When Mac asks, "Do you want to dance?" it might be meant as a joke but the effect of the music is fun, not funny. "Proud To Fall" does, as well as everything else, make you want to dance. Even better, there are new songs, played fierce, fast and joyfully simple, that show the resignation of "Candleland" hasn't left Mac without anger.

You can pick out the worse or the best, depending on what you expected, but it was the cumulative brilliance of the evening that gave it its power, and the mixture of turbulence, calm, and exuberance that made it so right. The band left the stage to strange silences and sporadic calls for more. They came back to two encores and rapturous applause.

Well, what did you expect?