Available now is a studio-based recording which was aired on the French TV station Canal+ in June of 2007. I don't have the full running order from the night but watching it back I get a keen sense that this video is purely a highlights show, and that it might well have been a longer set but that it was clipped in the interests of keeping it at 30 minutes of running time.

June was the month that An End Has a Start was released which explains why the broadcast setlist only has a single Back Room song on it. The gig also benefits from this being very early in the AEHAS campaign, where the mental and physical fatigue of playing the same songs repeatedly night after night had yet to become a factor. Everything was still new and fresh and you can hear it in the musical intensity. There's a certain shock that accompanies hearing Smokers being played this early on, for example, because all of the crowd participation/baiting from Tom in the years that followed has changed it whenever it's on the setlist now. I know it was played in front of a limited amount of people here who probably weren't that familiar with the song, and it's also in a relatively sterile studio setting, but the quiet that happens between the "We've all been changed..." section and the band coming back in feels weird. There's a little bit of clapping but nothing like the noise you get at a regular Editors show these days. It's an effort to remind yourself that at one point this was a new track, much the same as there was a time when Munich or even Bullets hadn't been heard by a wider audience. Imagine that.

This was also the sound of a band that had gained significant experience of playing live from the extremely lengthy and arduous Back Room campaign, a bout of touring that almost derailed their creative abilities when they recorded E2, so everybody is on point when it comes to delivering the songs with greatest effect.

These professionally recorded shows benefit from being mixed, which means that we get a chance to hear each member of the band and their participation in the proceedings. Ed's drums are right where they need to be (take a listen to WOTW and AEHAS), Tom's vocals are loud and clear (Racing Rats and WOTW especially so), Chris' guitar sounds gloriously ragged, particularly on Escape the Nest and Bones, while everyone is surfing the bass provided by King Leetch. Given the time it was filmed you'll notice that this gig is very much based around An End Has A Start, with only Bullets making an appearance from the Back Room.

As an added bonus, if you've been on this wonderful journey with Editors for more than a little while, you might recognise a few familiar faces from the band's old online forum in some of the crowd shots. Enjoy the music ;)

Broadcast Setlist
Walking onstage 0:00
Bones 0:29
An End Has a Start 4:45
The Racing Rats 8:38
The Weight of the World 12:50
Bullets 17:15
Escape the Nest 20:50
Smokers 25:10

brought to you with lots and lots of lemming-love :) x

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