After somehow being persuaded to turn up at 4pm the boardies and I braced the freezing cold to get the coveted spot in the front row.  Lots of Dutch food made the time fly by and without doubt the gig was worth the wait.

After a brisk three hours the warmth of the Olympia Theatre greeted us with open arms. The large crowd of early birds were then treated to what seemed to be the entire back catalogue of The National. Impatience ensued, but before we knew it, Mobius Band had come on for their first gig outside of America. Cheap Irish digs aside, the crowd responded well to a good if not slightly over the top performance.

Shortly after nine, the lights dimmed, the crowd went crazy and Tom, Ed, Chris & Russell strode onto the stage and launched into ‘Camera’, which was a pleasant surprise as it had been a while since I’d seen it live. After this relatively gentle start Editors roared into three previous singles ‘An End Has A Start’, ‘Blood’ and ‘Bullets’.

By the time they reached ‘The Weight Of The World’ the band were in their full stride. The crowd, me included, were absolutely loving it. ‘Escape The Nest’ and one of my live favourites ‘Lights’ followed. Tom was screaming like a man possessed, his numerous altercations with the piano were crazy but stunning at the same time. These on stage antics continued with ‘When Anger Shows’.

We got a bit of respite with ‘Spiders’ before ‘All Sparks’ and my personal favourite ‘Munich’ were played. A mass sing along followed which as always, was really special.

The next song was probably the highlights of the night. We were treated to the first live performance of the new single ‘Push Your Head Towards The Air’ in Europe. It was just Tom on the acoustic guitar and Russell on the piano. It was very nicely done, but the addition of Chris on the electric guitar could elevate this song to a whole new level.

Chris and Ed rejoined the stage for another of my favourites ‘Bones’. This performance brought back memories of Bones’s original splendour to when we first heard it two years ago.

‘Smokers’ was the final song to be played before the encore and it finally got the energetic crowd dancing. My favourite song from ‘An End Has A Start’ ‘The Racing Rats’ was next. It was absolutely majestic live. The lighting effects were particularly noticeable in this song with a massive light blinding the crowd on the words ‘Shade my eyes from the sun’. Brilliant.

Usual fan favourite ‘You Are Fading’ followed as intensely as ever before the action packed ‘Fingers In The Factories’ raised the Olympia roof. We were left craving for more but we all knew we had seen a special performance. After the usual melee for setlists we then left to see where the Dublin night would take us…

- Eoin Melvin

• July 2008
• April 2008
• March 2008
• February 2008
• January 2008
• December 2007
• November 2007
• October 2007

• Heineken Open’er Festival 04/07/08 - Danuta Tuchowska
• Frome 26/06/08 - Gary
• Le Bataclan Paris - Mary F
• Lisbon and Oporto - Teresa Domingues
• Clermont Ferrand - Samantha Chapman
• Barcelona - Adriana Romero
• Italy - Lisa Zac
• Ella at the NIA - Ella
• Darmstadt 21 March 2008 - Samantha Chapman
• Glasgow - Halina
• London 06/03/08 - Ros James
• Alexandra Palace - London - Samantha
• Manchester - Gary
• Doncaster - Gary
• Birmingham 29/02/08 - Gary