Boulder Theatre – Boulder, Colorado, 26th May 2006 (merged)

Still grooving on this show days later. I'm an avid concert-goer (indie, punk, artnoise, shoegaze) but I haven't seen a show (western-US idiom for gig) this good in years. Honestly.

I'd always heard of The Fall but didn't catch up to them until Kurious Oranj. I didn't GET them, however, until Extricate which is still my favorite (though PBL, WFW, NSG and RNFLfCOC are very close). They did not, however, ever play within 400 miles of me until now (I drove 350 miles to catch this gig). In fact, they have never played in this TIME ZONE! So, after a 18 year wait...talk about bated breath (reference to earlier post)!

Touring bands all know the difficulty of making the jump (drive) from Denver to Vegas, (or SFran or Phoenix), so many try shows in Salt Lake. Problem is, in Mormon culture, you're either on a "mission" or having children by the time you are of legal club age (21). In other words, the scene is small (see the excellent movie "SLC Punk"). So, bands often arrive in the Denver metro area (of which Boulder is a part) complain of having played for 12 people the night before. I've seen shows there and it's a pleasure...for the fans anyway. Nonetheless, Tim assured me the gig went well. Problem is, it's 500 miles to Boulder from SLC and they had to do it immediately. Because the tour manager was fired, Tim's been doing the driving. The band arrived an hour before the gig (Tim was delayed by a speeding ticket out on Interstate #80) and the staff at Boulder Theater were stressed about not having a sound check. Tim's a freaking soldier for bounding in with his bloodshot eyes, helping load-in, playing a blistering set, doing break-down/load-out and getting right back in the van to drive to Kansas City! But, they're a young band and that's the time for doing that kind of shite.

Boulder is one of those great American University towns. But what makes it unique is:
The Univ of COLO is often a top-ten rated school academically and artistically (i.e. a rated party school) and is very supportive of touring bands with a thriving scene and several venues. It sits at an altitude of over 5000 feet. Though this is tough on some bands, it's actually at the BOTTOM of the Rocky Mountains right where the Great Plains end, just a 20 minute drive northwest of Downtown Denver; part of a metro area of a couple million. As you can imagine, it's quite scenic. Final exams, however were more than a week ago so most of the 20 or 30 thousand students had already left for summer break. Unfortunate timing for the band. Most indie/punk bands play at the Fox Theater on University Hill. The Boulder Theater is generally the reserve of folk outfits and specialty slideshow/film lectures. It's a nice, clean venue refurbished from an old movie theater that holds about 400 hundred. More importantly, it's on the famous "Pearl Street" which is an outdoor, pedestrian mall about 5 block long with loads of outdoor cafes, new-age type book stores, a Buddhist temple, mountaineering shops and, mostly, pubs. People come from all over by the thousands (this was a federal holiday weekend in America) just to walk up and down (oblivious to The Fall show!). In most of America, street performing (busking, juggling, etc.) is a jailable offense. Not so on Boulder's Pearl Street. So, before the show I hung out and watched a magician, a tribal-drumming/dancing entourage from Africa, a memorist, etc. Boulder has a ban on indoor smoking. Therefore, you can enter the club, trade your ticket for a hand stamp and walk in and out as often as you like. There's no pat-down or anything; all the opposite of shows down the road (at Denver). So I checked on the crowd. I was expecting a sell-out but it ended up kinda light. I checked around in Denver the day before the show and there really was poor/no promotion on this tour. I counted about 300 hundred at the show, though (kids have to sit in the balcony), so that's a pretty good turnout for a holiday. Chatting up fans before the show, they were mostly 30s-40s-ish and not ONE I talked to had heard the last two LPs. Strange.

The opener was Dario Rosa, a local band. They are obviously influenced bu VU (in fact, they covered them) but the lead guy played a Gretsch which gave them a sound closer to Lime Spiders. They were good and the relaxed, microbrew oriented crowd was amenable to them. But, when they go off, they announce The Fall are up. Of course, it's the 'video guy' and I knew from reading this board what was coming so I went back out on the mall after watching a bit (sorry, not my thing).

When the Fall start the big grind and the theater starts to shake, I re-entered and walked directly to the stage under Elena (nice to have an older crowd and a lack of pressing college students after all). It's a new number (Scenario, reworked form Coming Down) and MES enters with the "we are the..." rants. He looks good to me; better than pix from a few years back. I don't see what all the fuss/negative comments are about. You should see some of my uncles.

As bootleg collectors know, they don't do justice to actually being there. Even when MES jerked the cord out of the mike (and didn't seem to notice why it was dead and chided the soundboard) it didn't deter from the sound (I mean, you know, rock and roll, and energy, and all that). The acoustics were good and I'm amazed they can play so well without stage monitors (I asked Tim after and he said he could hear himself well off of the house sound).

The crowd were totally into the show and MES was definitely enjoying the crowd (though he almost knocked my drink over when he stood at the very edge and did 'the lean', stepping on my hand; nice smelling shoe polish, that). The knob twiddling may sound odd on a boot, but in person...well, you gotta see the band (if you haven't seen the Fall 2006 v.2...).

You already have the setlist, so

The real new deal with the Real New Fall:
I had heard the 'video guy' was no longer on the tour but he is a friend of the band. He's from Israel via Germany and a really nice guy. He gave me the scoop on the Arizona debacle (his version anyway). As Elena said to me "that seems like a lifetime ago". She, too, is nice. Somebody here had made some comments about here bag and lunchbox that she brings on stage so I asked her about it. She's had some theft experiences so she keep her personals close-by. Her synth got damaged in transit to the states so she's playing one borrowed from the video guy (a classic Korg AS20 circa 1982). Orphee is a madman on the kit. He goes into that zone that good drummer visit. Rob's bass isn't just a low-end hall-shaking rumble. It is the propeller. It's snappy, clear, heavy, deep. The secret? He says it's his RAT pedal. They're great boxes.

This outfit are nice and Rob was happy to add comments during my chat with Tim. (Like, how did you get the gig? How did you learn the songs? How did the LA sessions go? Are you excited about going to Europe?)

Big big thank you to those of you that gave reviews from CAL and uploaded to yousendit; it made the show better and of, course provided the ultimate souvenir merch.

my photos:

fantastic review, thank you!
And great pics!

Seconded