Everything seemed to open up for Echo & The Bunnymen in the latter half of 1983. Singles success with The Cutter and Never Stop and gold-selling third album Porcupine had elevated them above their postpunk rivals, at least in commercial terms. But instead of taking the prescribed route into vast arenas, the Liverpool four-piece instead kept it relatively micro, opting to play tours that supposedly followed ley lines from their home town to Scandinavia and the Outer Hebrides.
“We were at the peak of our powers as a group,” singer Ian McCulloch told us in 2013. “Everyone else was wearing cowboy hats and playing stadiums, while we were rocking the cobbled streets. It was significant that we’d play small islands on the west coast of Scotland rather than stadiums.”
