I remember the first time we played this live in Switzerland and it wasn’t that great. We were trying new equipment and Ed had these drum pads which went off all the bloody time in the wrong places so to get any groove was near impossible. Over that initial summer we ditched those pads off and managed to gel the live band to the synthetic elements. I remember playing it at Pinkpop the following summer in the Netherlands and we had the biggest pogoing crowd I’d ever seen, it gave us that hairs on the back of your neck moment. It was at this time Europe really found us as a band whilst in the UK Shaun Keavney just sampled ‘it kicks like a sleep twitch’ as a gag for his show.
By the end of that third album we were playing bigger shows in mainland Europe than we did at home. The gothic, dark nature in the band travelled well. Look at the likes of Depeche Mode, The Cure, Placebo – bands that have that slightly dark and romantic thing have historically done well in those countries. You have to be good live, though, otherwise they spit you out if you’re not believable. It was a slightly confusing time. Papillon was the biggest song we’d had internationally but in the UK, people were like: ‘Um, it’s a bit weird and where’s the guitars?’ Yet over the years, every summer Papillon has grown and grown to become our festival anthem. That and Munich are the defining songs from early in our career.
Welcome to the Black Gold Archives. Explore the timeline as it chronicles sixteen tracks that make up the Black Gold greatest hits record and discover stories from each song. Videos, photos and memories written by the band and people who lived through every era of Editors. And, most importantly, add your own memory to the archives and let the whole world share in it. Every memory that is shared will be added to the archive. A photo of a tiny, sweaty gig in the early 2000s… A grainy video taken from your old camera phone thrust in the air while you lived out your favourite festival moment… Or maybe words. A story, a moment, a memory.
Explore the Black Gold Archive at your leisure and share in the moments that crafted Editors. And don’t forget to leave something to show the world that you were part of the journey too.