Your three Fall Highlights of 2005, What were your bestest moments ?

Ooh, what a year.

In true look-back bore fashion, which three rocked your boat and made you proud to be a Fall fan

Results of poll to be announced on Fall News on 31 December 2005 so please do vote...

Sheffield 7 Oct 05 - a most intimate gig, and a corker to boot

Peel Sessions - all in one lovely box

The docco - could probably have lasted another two hours, but 60 mins of sheer joy

Hmm... the Sessions, the reissues, and the doc (just because it's about bloody time)... which makes me a look-back bore, I suppose. I wasn't expecting much to be honest, but FHR was less rock and more exploratory than I was expecting - here's hoping for really weird shit in 2006.

Peel Sessions - Best money spent this year. Had what felt like a long wait for it after it had been released, the local retailer in this part of Ireland had trouble getting it, but he strove manfully for a couple of weeks and it paid off more than I could have expected.

a good year for the fall all in.
celebrity endorsements meant jack shit though, with the exception of stewart lee, such patronage is to be viewed dismissively and is doubtless only a temporary fling until the next 'credible entity' of the moment emerges for famous name droppers to cream all over and latch on by way of a self esteem, self worth, self personality substitute security blanket.
fall heads roll was brash and lively, plenty of the 'less is more' philosophy in evidence, but a lot more substance than one would have anticipated prior to its release. not the best fall album ever, but well above average. proof that you should never predict quite what the fall are going to do next.
some good gigs, some a bit ropey. but i enjoyed the few i got along to.
mes banging the cymbal on 'grass grow' during the documentary was the tv highlight of the year.

I went for March / April gigs, Jools Holland and Peel Sessions.

The album didn't make it not because it isn't good, but simply there's at least one album a year...Peel Sessions is a one off, career summation sort of thing, merits special mention.

While the Jools appearance could've been better, but it's pretty unique, and nice that they got to play on it. The wave, the extended note...

Best to last (ok whether it's 'better' than the Peel box is debatable, but that covers many years, whereas unless there's been sort of time slippage or warp, this definitely was pretty much a 2005 thing if you know what I mean, if you don't, dismiss it as Stranger talking bollocks again )....

Drum roll...

Concorde 2, Brighton Sunday, 3 April 2005

Classic gig. One of my all time favourite gigs of all time. Seriously, probably the best Fall gig I've been to, and I've been to Fall gigs since '91.

Documentary, FHR, PeelBox. Three entitlements to Living Leg-ends..

The best Fall year for me since 1993.

Voted for both sets of UK gigs (Glasgow division), and the Peel sessions set. Thought that was more of a vindication than FHR...

Peel Sessions box, FHR and the documentary as I have these on CD or DVD

I also have several great recordings from the UK tour but it's just not comparable to being there.

the best Fall year since 1986 IMO

Shit, the doc was in the line-up too...damn, missed it. (not seeing it, seeing it was in the voting ).

3 options is not enough.

What a fantastic year it's been for them.

A very good year, indeed.

Gone for:

- Berlin 17 June: A storming gig,

- Fall Heads Roll: album of the year, for me and

- The Peel-Box: Archivars and collectors pleasure.

can I have 4 please?

presuming thats OK

live at glasgow uni
peel sessions
fall heads roll
live at renfrew ferry

never seen the documentary
i'm a lightweight I know

Peel sessions:
Absolutely magnificent, packaged well, etc, etc

Autumn tour:
Manchester Academy - so excited, so pissed
Wrexham - Fall Fan Dave, excellent set, intimate
Islington - meeting so many from here
Sankey's Soap - ditto and getting pissed and boring Marc Riley

This place:
A chance to chat, share experiences, have fun - only occasionally ruined by opinionated and inconciderate posters

Aspen

Peel sessions coming out - the finest collection of music anywhere, bar none

Jamming the keyboard on Jools Holland, and generally treating said piano irritant with all deserved contempt

1. The Complete Peel Sessions - brilliant. Maybe a follow-up release for the non-Peel Sessions to fill in the gaps?

2. The Forum gig - 20/05/05 - as this was my only fall gig this year! I know I'm a lightweight!

3. FHR - half-decent release, and any new Fall album is still a significant event in my book.

I still haven't seen the Documentary but otherwise the other events are merely interesting.

Agreed - they are good enough for that, and the bootleg versions are a poor substitute for hearing them as should sound.

the rereleases... I'm a new fan so these were my first copies of these... Hex and PBL have climbed to my list of favorite albums

Fall Heads Roll - my first time getting a Fall album when its first come out

Peel Box - 6 discs of greatness

Oh, the Peel Box, a fitting tribute not only to our dearly-beloved band, but to the great man himself. Should have had a picture of Peel & MES on the front of the box, but that's just a minor quibble.

The documentary, as clayts said, could have been two hours - hell, it could be a 26 part series and we'd still want more!

The Manchester show on 1 October, the Fall were on fiery form, and (creep, creep), it was good to meet clayts and some of the gang.

If I had a fourth choice, it'd be the football score thing, if only for MES accusing Ray Stubbs of having a Strangeways haircut.

In 2006, I'm most looking forward to the Infotainment reissue, the Guardian article, fingers crossed for getting to the Antwerp show and my US copy of FHR finally arriving! Oh and a new album of all-new, more 'personal' material of course

Saw the Preston gig as my birthday night out, which was the first time I'd seen them since whenever they placed The Palace at Blackpool (12 years ago? Not sure)

FHR finally broke the stubborn resistance of Mrs Baz, who thinks Blindness is ace, and grudgingly admits that the whole album is "pretty good".

Peel Sessions is chuffin' super. The best release by any band for many a long while.

If I could vote for four instead of three, I'd also include the documentary, because I took great delight in forcing unconverted friends to watch it when round my house. Admittedly, only few were actually fully converted, (in fact, for "few" read "none"), but they all changed their opinion of MES and The Fall from "can't sing miserable drunk untalented boring old git" to "can't sing good laugh drunkard with quite a bit of talent, actually). So, certainly a partial success. World domination WILL be ours.

I went for:

Autumn gigs - 2nd of the Islington nights for me.

Peel sessions box set

Appearing on Jools Holland (them waving at the start, and "that note" still make me laugh).

Would have loved to have got out to a gig or two, but was recovering from slipped disc instead, so...

FHR, PBL reissue, Peel box. This forum's a right laff as well. It's been a great year.

April gig at the Concorde Brighton over sometimes shambolic October Fest. Best gig for years, took along ex-classmates 16-year-old kids, who thought them the best band they'd seen.

FHR over Peel Sessions, not only because I'd had the MP3 of Peel for a good few years so was not something anew, but becausae FHR is an excellent album.

And Jools Holland over BBC4, a startling performance.

But if I'd looked properly I'd had voted for summat else, and that would have been the genius of the Fall Cup. A great way of re-acquainting myself with the dark recesses of my lousy record collection.

Not just me then who found that night exceptional.

Cardiff, "Blindness" version, my mate who is a not Fall fan but came with us 'cos he'd never seen Johnny Clarke saying "I can see what the fuss is all about now" (he'd seen them one other time and they'd been crap). My other mate bollocking MES about his stage exit. My other other mate and me dancing to "F-Oldin' Money" and stopping on a dime in all the right places.

Yes, that should have been included in my choices - thanks Conway