Carling Academy, Islington, London – 1st night, 26th September 2005 (merged)

I should look on the bright side... I suppose in future I'll be able to calculate it to the day: 26 years, four months and eight days. If you only knew how depressing that is...

The support? No idea who they were... probably the most un-Fall support I've seen, but that's no excuse for the disdain they got. The Fall were a support once, and I've seen them treated badly at their best. They deserve credit for braving one of the severest audiences I hope they'll face.

The main event? Words fail me. I'm still pissed, which is probably just as well else I may never get this down otherwise. This was without doubt the worst Fall gig I've ever seen. It's possibly the third worst gig I've ever seen, not counting the ones I slept through.

I've had mid-set disappearances, 2-hour waits, crap sound, mumbled droning, inaudible instruments aplenty, the works apart from actual on-stage fisticuffs. This time they were prompt, early and well-behaved, but fuck me, what a bore.

The sound: Lovely bass, what about the rest? Eleni especially - I'm glad she didn't hear what I heard of her contribution, ie nowt.

The music: This Fall may find its own music, but tonight wasn't it. MES half-alert, starting in the middle... lots of throb & subdued thrash... where were the quiet bits? It wasn't fucking Glastonbury, for fuck's sake. Grind, churn, grind... not what I came for. I know others like it, but it's not what makes The Fall.

The rest: Never mind Mr "Sympathy for the moshers" Smith & his tantrums, I've more sympathy for the bouncers - I wish they'd dragged the tossers over the barrier & slit their throats. This has what to do with the music of the Fall, precisely? They'd have been just as happy at a Van Halen gig.

Crap applause got two encores, perhaps most depressingly. If you're going to play music for stiffs and they act like stiffs (deservedly so), treat 'em like stiffs and fuck off backstage & don't come back.

Setlist? Boxoctosis, then... like I give a toss?

I've never wanted my money back for anything The Fall gave me, until tonight. Well it's coming right back of the next LP, a non-purchase.

Angry, depressed... above all, depressed.

Christ, that doesn't sound too good, Dave.

You're not doing it all again tomorrow night are you ?

Did you meet up with some other Fall fans in the pub beforehand ? What did they think ?

Van Halen moshers ? Shit, may need to smuggle me in a tazer to the next Fall gig I go to...

wow this is not very good at all. I am shocked by this, i know the berlin gig did not get a good review, but the russians loved them. this must of been an off night.

So what you're saying is, they turned up on time and just ploughed through on autopilot?

Great. I'd rather have that than some of the shit I've seen at Fall gigs in the past.

As far as the moshpit goes, they had a big crowd who seemed to have come just to chant along to "Sparta FC", at Islington last year.

No fear, this is my last until there's a pretty fucking mighty change, and that don't come easy for me.

Ha! What pub? I'm waiting to hear the story about that...

Can they be set to kill?

i still would pay money to see the fall even if they did do their gig on autopilot. wait they did when they played in the us.

Not even that... lacklustre unfeeling sloppiness wouldn't have been half so bad... I think there's a real misjudgment at work. Tonight was not what The Fall does.

Oh yes, they knew Sparta, Pharmacist & a couple of others... which presumably earns them preferential treatment. Hope I spoiled their evening more than they did mine... that was already ruined.

How did you attempt to spoil their evening ?

Hope you got a few of them in the ribs. Or did you stand there scowling ? I do that and people drop dead, because of the sheer ugliness of my contorted physog

Something like that, elbows set to hurt, eyes on hate... I don't mind people good-humouredly dancing on me, it's the deliberate shit I can't stand.

seemed a good one to me, pivotal when mes tapped over-zealous bouncer with mike stand, thus allowing all to carry on dancing, drinking, whatever... new songs are equal to 'country on the click' so it's looking pretty rosy with the whites beating crewe yesterday. every egg a bird!

were we in the same universe?
athlete picked me up (cheers ) and we found a parking space right outside the academy.
Got to the King's Head soon after half six and dug in ..R.Totale was running late, but nice to meet you
Ran back to the academy, having been told that The Fall would be onstage at nine. Had time for a coke and was just thinking how it ewould be too perfrect for them to start just then, when a cranked-up p.a. brought us Loop41 'Houston
Just in case there were some not concentrating it was repeated.
Just to rub it in.
Then the band came on, with mes in a bigger glove than I remember ..surely some kind of gauntlet?
started by playing open the box and the night just got better.
"Good evening, we are The Fall. How nice of you to invite us to your town."
Well, once I got over the shock of DrBucks' Letter coming straight at us as second song - completely out of the blue
Nothing to break it in
I loved every minute,
except touch sensitive,
not for want of performance - went down v.fine - I just don't care for it myself.
Wasn't bothered by those bouncing up & down at the front (seemed to be a very discerning crowd, doing everything the right way) but had space to stomp away to all the rare stuff like ..mountain energei; what about us; contraflow; clasp hands; blindness mod mock goth
mes was well up for it, just like in stourbridge leaning out towards those stood at the front, delivering lines as clearly as they'd sounded on latest peel session.
Even throwing in a wistful, throwaway melody in between songs and grinning at the response it got.
Don't know what you were on, otherdave, but how could you miss eleni's contributions?
True, her mic didn't pick up her vocal at all, but I've never heard her keyboard so pronounced. On clasp hands the line was like submariners noises, first high, like dolphin, then real low.
I was really moved.
amazed
plus she threw in a couple of hand-claps to ..wrong place?
hmm

don't understand your reaction at all.
Even though it felt like they could play a load more encores, it was impossible to follow the version of New Big Prinz .. no pandering with mics for the audience, just a real solid rendition that seemed to touch everyone around me.
Got to be at work at half six, so I shouldn't really be here anyway.
Would love to go tomorrow night, but I can't.

seconded

i thought it was the best i'd seen the fall for ages
no weird tensions
no walk offs
MES actually making an effort to sing the songs properly

band were really good
load of good backing vocals

it was sold out too
and felt like it .. nice and full

Naah, it was bloody awful, I'm sorry, just grinding through the stuff like a fucking waste disposal unit doesn't do anything for me. If I'm being harsh, it's because I think someone has to be. Maybe the records'll be better, but I fear the worst.

And that bouncer gave a talking-to to people who'd earned one - no aggression, abuse or shit - even they took it fairly well, so I don't know what the problem was. Good for him.

I could have done with a walk-off. First time I've ever not wanted more. That's bad.

mind you, no accounting for taste.
As much as I love ruRmissing winner, it was only this Friday night, and perhaps my 200th listen to the record that I finally accepted the monkey in Ibis Afro man, perceiving it as the flower crowning an obscenely hideous, sweating scrub plant.
Nothing from that lp tonight, mind

I've loved the monkey as my own pet acoustic pseudo-monkey for many weeks. But that's no excuse.

glad to see they did big new prinz, that is a great song.

Those leaving the Carling Academy were left to exclaim -

With fans like this, who needs the Guardian second section?

A rather OK-ish performance by The Fall. Highlights a rumbling Mod Mock Goth, a sinister, angular Contraflow and an irrepressible Mr Pharmacist. Ben looking like a ropey temp with his badly stitched suit jacket and cocksure manner. Only possible reason for being there to wind the crowd (or Smith?) up. Drummer largely useless (apart from Mod Mock Goth) and a visual irritant. Jim head up, proud and expressionless with his godawful hair and beard looking rather better than with that nasty pony tail. New guy, head down, did job. Smith and Eleanor have obviously been chomping on the pineal glands of ex-members as both looked well, Eleanor younger than ever and Smith like a man instead of a stick or a melted candle. Grey shirt, pressed slacks, good shoes and Gene Vincent leather glove.

No matter! Smith could have come on in lurid spandex and topper and The Fall have played a blinder and no-one in their Angel Sunday stupor would have noticed. They were aided in their mental time off by very quite deranged bouncers who wanted to stop people dancing (seriously). Only stopped by Mark prodding back of bouncer with mike stand. Also stopped people taking video photos (good, bane of concerts people holding their digital camera mobiles aloft to prove 'I was there'.). Like senescent animals, crowd could be prodded to life by familiar songs, but this was only mechanical jerking to distant memories.

Commandante Mark on fine form on the amps all night, taking Ben down a peg or two a few times. A peg or two further would not hurt. When Ben wasn't turning his amp back up the effect of the changing levels of guitar sound was exceptional. Do as you are told you dick, must be the instruction of the day to Ben.

Pisspoor and half-hearted Big New Prinz. Matches audience brain levels. After electric crowd and atmosphere at Champions Trophy cricket final previous day a sore let down.

Apart from that, very good.

Felix Paleface.

They got the audience they deserved. The tragedy is that most of the audience probably got the Fall they wanted - nondescript sensurround rock - and they'll probably be given more of the same since it makes them so happy. And therein lies the path to oblivion for a band that's thrived on unflinching creativity and challenging expectations.

The bouncers weren't stopping people dancing, they were trying pretty half-heartedly to stop people pushing each other against those at the front barrier. They were working men doing a shite job to the best of their ability - I though MES respected that sort of thing, or is is only when it fits in with his own rosy notion of labour. It's simple, if he doesn't like Carling's bouncers, play someone else's venues - and he can spare me the pandering to the crowd, that's not what The Fall's for.

I have to agree with this rather downbeat review.
Some of the more repetitive numbers built up a fairly unstoppable momentum, but on the whole it felt like Fall by numbers. They were a competent, workmanlike proffessional rock band (as boring or exciting as you want that to be)- the only really startling things musically were a few bleeps and boops from Eleni's synth which added a certain Pere Ubu quality at moments, but most of the time remained well submerged in the mix. (incidently Mrs Bagrec thought Eleni looked the spit of Tracy Barlow from "Coronation Street").
Few bones thrown to the older fans (compared to the triumphant gig in the same venue a year ago)- "Mr Pharmacist"? gimme a break!
Felt to me like a great band treading water.
Oh and we pushed past Bobby Gillespie to get in.

Well, I have to say I think you are being slightly self-important and pious here. There's no 'tragedy'. It was a good gig, without being inspirational - hell, it wouldn't even be a tragedy if it had been an atrocious gig - they've played some pretty bad ones before. They tour a lot and more often than not they are exceptionally good.

The dancing at the front looked rather mild when the bouncer tried to stop it. Like you, I have never understood the pushing people around with barrelling elbows malarky, and it IS irritating when you get deposited arse down in a pool of nasty lager because of thuggish behaviour at the front, but I thought that last night was relatively even tempered.

Anyway, I couldn't really give a toss whether people want to dance or not, it is just that nobody seemed at all switched on. A lot of the crowd didn't seem to be all there, to be honest.

Don't take it too hard! I am sure you will enjoy future gigs if you go.

Oh, and you have got to admit Mod Mock Goth was great.


Felix Paleface

Sorry, that was an answer to otherdave not Mr and Mrs Bagrec! I must learn how to use these damn message board options...

Felix Idiot

Remarkable stuff in London last night (Islington Carling Academy 26/9/04).

Setlist was:

Intro tape: Loop 41/Houston [played twice in a row]
1) Open The Boxoctosis
2) Dr. Buck's Letter [incl. Enigrammatic Dream lyrics]
3) Mountain Energei
4) Theme From Sparta F.C.
5) What About Us?
6) Clasp Hands
7) Green Eyed Locoman
8) Mr. Pharmacist
9) Touch Sensitive
10) (We Are) Mod Mock Goth
11) Contraflow
12) Wrong Place/Right Time / I Can Hear The Grass Grow
13) Blindness
encore 1:
14) White Lightning
encore 2:
15) Big New Prinz

Highlights were many:

• Mark walking on, squinting at the crowd and (just about) smiling
• Very creepy and intense (We Are) Mod Mock Goth with Mark doing the sarcastic questioning voice from Eat Y'self Fitter on the 'chorus'
• Vast and amazing Blindess – already sounding like a classic Fall track
• Mark playing a few high notes on Elena's keyboard (she smiled when he did it the third time)
• Mark doing a funny yodel thing between two of the songs, and then smiling (he was in a great mood, I thought)
• Bouncer getting poked by Mark with mic stand
• Mark taking off his one black glove (can someone explain this?) and examining his fingers very closely for a while
• Singing into two mics at once
• Singing from the corner
• Mark singing one bit of Big New Prinz with no mic at all
• Sarcastic "Thank you for inviting us to your lovely town"
• Clear, engaged and focused vocals (for the most part)
• Band sounding fabulous

Anyone tape it? (Imagine it was too loud to sound any good on a recording though.)

Your thoughts here please...

It was a great show.

I enjoyed the gig too - especially the last song they did before the encores (don't know what it was called, but I am sure MES mentioned Aristotle Onassis during it).

Goddamn I hope they come back to amerika.

We love you in Oklahoma, Fall. I will personally do whatever I can to promote the shit out of them if they play locally again (they cancelled the April show I was set to see....AAAArrrrgghh!-- but I wasn't bitter...I know they had their reasons).

I have also resolved that I will travel far if need be to see them when they next make it over here. Can't think of any band I'd more like to see live.

Stephen, that show sounds fantastic. I wish someone videotaped every performance.