Virgin Music/North Six NYC, gigs Oct 15 2004

Virigin Music show in Union Square, (manhattan) was AMAZING, good sound and intense performance, Set was:
Bo Doodak
Box
Sparta FC
Blindness
White Lightning.

Then the North Six show in Brooklyn was unbelievable. The band sounded outrageously great. Set was:

Bo Doodak
Box
Clasp
Sparta
Mad Mock
Wrong Place/Grass
Pharmacist
Mountain Energi
What About Us
Janet & Johnny
Green Eyed Loco
Blindness,
Encore: white Lightning.


Contraflow was on the set list I picked up from the stage at the bass player's feet. It seems it was supposed to come before Blindness but they did not play it. White Lightning was not on the list. I thought all the new songs were stupendous, and
the band was tight and great. Mark was in top form at Virgin, slightly disoriented at North 6. Shows like these are the reason why they're my favorite band. You can't beat them. They are fantastic. Sorry if this is a little less descriptive than usual. It's 4am. I must sleepy bye now. I just want everyone to know these shows were devestatingly brilliant.

Is this the only person who went to these events....come on you New Yorkers..post something ..photos...diary... anything

You know what I spent an hour writhing a review of the shows and when I went to post it it disappeared sg one forever.
Crap, I will try to rewrite it...that makes me so furious!!

I cannot believe I wrote that whole thing and it disappeared.
Here a New Yorker strait from tha hood, yo yo, weird maker klisten glistening.
Compared to what I wrote this will be somwhat lame, I worte a Domesday book.

At the store, a mall resembling Onion Square, a signing, with ME Smith grinning and grimacing, he enjoyed himesled as he arrived slightly late in an evening Manh. raining cab, lost in traffic by insulate standards, it was raining.
I was Quite impressed by the delivery of Blindness, a tremendous groove wroth if it had not moved you it moveth me. But on thoroughly enjoyed lid.
I would have walked you into the dark empty space but you we'en't ther, she dialed the wrong number, they said patriotism was the last refuge. (I had biked down there in the rain from west %4th street as the seat fel off, nearly killed to arrive at twenty til, yes, a bicycle, and I love biking in Manhattan, especially down 5th ave or Bwy in the Friday eve with all the cabs and buses and peds seeking home ward an the comforts of the meek). Later, later,..lost polar phone.
Our Mark Smith, Prince of moths, brought mic stands at BklyN to theer pathetic blunt form suggestions fear (brought humor to spine wrangling) His delivery right on with silver fire, often with two mics at his mouth, burning wholes in everyone's brain within range. K-knobbled with Jim Watts's created settings, and brought his fingers to Poulou's keys as well, adding and experinetting, they both embell so much; you need a log bok, and license son. At record store no such maniac behavior sans the Poulou flirting in the little Korg, a great noiser maker.
The army that is the orchestra the Fall stood like soldiers smithing the 21st century with a rage of sound. I drifted dowen to someone's basemnt where the Bunny Brains had also played, but it was a dada of mophead unlugging various synth in front of a filthy fishtank. At 1 a.m. as promised, Far above, in the Firmament, The Fall music, evryone were jumpoing in unison moraless to many a drnken pill pooping thrift wearing friend. The onslaught unrelenting, no argument could be made, and I, shook, humor submitted to a sinister waltz.
It is visible MES enjoyed himself and may have been out of it (wearing his t-shirt of playing cards) how he was very up and on it with a drive I can't believe. But the sound was im (It was frightening, how can you beleave?) mense and huge. White lightning drinking song enede bith the short said at the record store, and the Brooklyn show "hey hey Brooklyn ay ay" his favorite area to cover with the psychic gauze mask of dancehall. I'm sure of it, truly.
I said hi to Ben when they wlaked in to Brolyn club and at signing , "I remember you!" he exclaimed, "Yeah, New York!" I answered gleefully. He was a great man on the guitar, and is the conductor of the\is amazing band forged by Mr. Smith's ..thrusting into the new century with a fiery maelstrom at the helm, taking no pity on the meek ..I ket Brian, whom I met last time round the Fall grated us and Attem,pt was made to record with in the edge of this preciice, the side of Brooklyn broke into the jagged moanind ancient dock by the black void of the east river. The sound well beyond the capacity, the focus a void in the experiment of immediately deconstructing rock music, euphorbia.
Mona, lisa, "Way beyond what anybody should have to reasonably deal with" (portugal) but I have subjected, now ords or orifices, and a silver fire form the tongue. The new matter is THE FALL.
The Blindness, What about Us, I experienced a head spinning and my head moving.
An nearly empty crowded space of the dark empty club, where throngs disobeyed and dutifully.. The Immense Crustacean descended on the unsuspecting mad, the thrift wering messy haired skulls, and denied chaos or escape.
There were many camera, of recording device a two.
It's always free, the on wave brings no bullshit to the Trendyass in Bklyn, the Chaos eaters and Consummate, the embassy of Climbe; in a word Temperance.
I was happily enthused and high, I was shaken, my laughter drifted into fright and the sinister, waltzing.
At the signing of albums the LP also sold, and ME Smith very friendly signed for Fall fans who oozed there eternal ness. the record, store a three fold apparatus played the New Fall Album over the speakers much to the betterment and manipulation of minds perusing as so-called consumers on the floors through the myriad particles of mad product wrapt in plastik.
I danced at the Brooklyn show with visions of Iceland and noisy keyboards repeated in a windy main otony, with the groove beyond repairing any sense of rock music per se, but a rearrangement of all previous grievous cognations of what that rock noise could be, and the Manchester rises again and ne'er an exploding parallel is any mirror.

I was at the Northsixth show and thought it was worthwhile.

Personally, I find Smith's finishing school for soon-to-be-unemployed musicians pretty depressing these days, but I have to hand it to him for coughing up anything at all that's halfway decent all these years later.

I didn't find the new material especially interesting, although the piece that closed the set proper was *very* good indeed. The obligatory "oldie" from Kurious Orange fit in pretty well with this batch of songs. (Damning something with faint praise, right.)

After seeing Brian Wilson, Love/The Zombies and Clinic all in a row, I probably should have just stayed home. But you know when you have an itch you just have to scratch....

Anyway, this seems like a nice website. Hi everyone.

After driving 5 hours to NJ, parking my car at a friends and waiting for the 7o'clock bus in the freezing rain...which didn't come until 930 I should say..we finally managed to get to the North Six at 12:30, convinced I'd travelled all the way to catch the 2nd half of The Fall's set. Upon arriving I immediately heard the blissful words out of a promoter's mouth "has Mark even showed up yet?"


So I was just in time. I managed to get into the 2nd or 3rd row. The crowd was mostly comprised of, to use my friend's term "bedhead cuties", but that was to be expected, it being in a hip area of Brooklyn. Mostly young male and female crowd.

The announcer said "For those of you waiting for the Fall, they'll be on soon and they love you very very much"...."And by soon I mean 10 minutes not 2 hours".

The Fall came out to recover kit, and Mark walked out last, a funny look on his face (as if he was full aware he'd taken his sweet time and found it amusing nonetheless), his mouth sopping wet from beer. I thought he was going to be drunk, but luckily he was on form. Dead on form; I've seen The Fall 3 times now and they've been better each time. This time was easily the best. Mark's vocals were audible and shouted with vigor. Sometimes he gets lost in the band's loud guitar work, but this time he took it as challenge to try his best to yell over it. Within 2 minutes he'd toppled a mike stand, but soon he decided to stop switching from mike to mike and just sing in all 3 at the same time.

The crowd was extraordinarily into it (and quite drunk). The reception to most songs was rapturous, especially the new songs. For whatever reason, everyone immediately went apeshit to I Can Hear the Grass Grow, delivered brilliantly. Everyone even knew the words to Sparta FC, giving the "Hey!"s an awesome effect. Lots of moshing (too much at times) a handful of drunks who got a bit too into it, but what'll ya do. I had the feeling Mark might keep playing forever at such reception, but then some douchebag decided to hop up on stage and kiss mark on his sweaty cheek! It wouldn't have been so bad if the guy didn't mug for applause directly afterward. Mark's eyes lit up briefly, but he shrugged it off well enough and hilariously performed the next song a few steps back from the stage. Anyhow, I hope this didn't sour MES too much. The band seemed rightfully in contempt of some of the audience (or maybe just tired) as some of the more obnoxious fans were denied "high fives" at the end.

MES in good mood, some banter, none I could quite hear. I liked seeing him turn around and examine the Spin/CMJ poster behind him for awhile, he muttered a sarcastic comment to the crowd...anyone hear this? Very tolerant of obnoxious bastards not content with a handful of photos, who compulsively photographed MES, reaching their hands a few feet in front of his face to blind him with flashes. One kept reaching over my face, and I was close to grabbing the camera out of his hands and beating him with it.

The new Bo Diddley intro is now most definitely a song, with lots of MES shouting, it builds to a grew wall of noise.

The band was excellant. Some guys in the front were really into the drumming, screaming at him [the drummer, forget his name] and pointing...eliciting embarassed smiles.

Janet and Johnny was played in a more avant garde way, either Mark turned Jim's guitar off or Jim was having some difficulty with it, it kept coming in and out, but it lent the song a different feel. Mark also managed to make this frightening/fantastic vocal noise into the microphones at the end, the vocal equivalent of feedback I'd say. Green Eyed is rearranged a bit, perhaps it will be like this on Interim. It's now played more as a rockabilly number, more of a bounce. I like the hypnotic original more, but it's nice to see some variation. Open to Box sans backup vocals, it worked very well.

Highlights include a scintillating Mod Mock Goth with back to audience, each word given with great pronoucement. Blindness, gripping (set closer, at this point MES might have been losing a bit of interest, but the band gave it their all). Mr. Pharmacist and White Lightening aren't anywhere near my favorite Fall songs, but MES loves to perform them both, so it's exciting. White Lightening is actually much better without it's early 90's vaseline. Wrong Place--band in perfect sing with MES, another great vocal performance. Mountain Energie was great too. Very fantastic show, worth the hellish trip there.

someone post photos of virgin thing ....this is the underlining thrill of why they are doing this thing in the first place....o great one ...sandlewoood tester etc.. what ...what

I thought that the Virgin show was very well done considering the poor sound mix and terrible acoustics. THe North Six show pissed me off a lot, all though the band were in fine form. Can anyone tell me what the hell happened with Langhorne Slim? Also, the Coachwhips being moved downstairs was a massive inconvenience, although they overcame it with an intensely energetic set. Nonetheless, I digress. I thought that the sound mix was incredible at the late show, and the musicians were in fine form. I'm very glad that Ben is still in the band--the faces he makes are priceless! Jim also sounds much better as a rhythm guitarist than as a bassist, in my opinion. Spencer drummed harder and more tastefully than any of the others during the entire evening of light-speed thrash, and at times he gave certain songs an unsuspected jazzy feel, although he also knew when to give it an extra push, hence the most powerful version of "I Can Hear the Grass Grow" I've ever heard. The audience was absolutely insane. Although many younger crowd members were dancing, it was the older members who were causing all the trouble (except for the woman from X27 who kept spitting beer), moshing and frenetically dancing.
Mark seemed somewhat pissed off at North Six, although at Virgin he seemed in a very pleasant mood--he had just wandered in off the street holding a couple of shopping bags and asked the sound tech where to set up. Both versions of "Blindness" completely wowed me, although there was a certain amount of lag to the end of the North Six set. They seemed tired and harassed. I'm sure that next time they pass through the U.S. on a longer visit they'll be in a better state, and I hope they perform at a more hospitable venue. Although the sound is never as good at the Knitting Factory, it would be nice to not have to endure as many bands beforehand.

they come to new york and leave and dont stay in america, thats too bad, i wished i live there sometimes, they get good groups, we get cheap rip offs.

You want the best news?

You can get a recording here !
Bit-torrents - including Fall CMJ set

the '91 Ritz gig went up on there yesterday too, my download rate dropped to almost nothing so I gave up after a while.
The Fall Ritz 1991 bit torrent

Whataya mean, what the hell happened to Longhorn Slim? Do you mean, why was he to terrible? or do you mean why was he so terrible yet all those people cheering him on as if he were good.

That was the mystery to me.

From what I'd heard, Mark was so late to the North Six gig because he took a cab but the driver didn't know where North Six was and went it the opposite direction. Mark had to find another cab ride, and the end cab took him further in the wrong direction. Then he ditched that cab and finally found one who knew where he was going. I think the rest of The Fall were there. It was only Mark who was late.

I just wanted to add that I really loved all the new songs.
WHAT ABOUT US, in particular is an amazing one! Catchy as hell, and with that unique approach to shouted backing vocals that's a Fall trademark.

It was great to see my riends who came, I just wish all my friends were there. I think most of them probably went to The Briefs/Some Action gig, that was also on the same night.

I've never used bit torrents before, I've found the Fall gig but how the fuck do you download it?

If anyone could help it would be much appreciated.

Firstly you'll need a Bit Torrent client program - they all seem to be freeware. I use Torrent Storm (just put that into Google and it will give you the site URL from which you can download it).

Once you've got that, you download the torrent file as indicated at the top of the relevant listing (i.e. The Fall show) and open that in the Torrent Storm program. You will then be invited to select a destination drive or folder on which you will save the file.

It takes hours to do, best done overnight or when you have nothing else to do. If you are on dial-up internet, expect to be waiting ages - it takes several hours on fast broadband, though this CMJ show took me about an hour.

Enjoy!

I disagree that they were tired and harassed, person who said so.
They all seemed really into it all, love what they are doin; it was so late at night you know and they had done the show in manhattan in the eve, you know?
Also,
the comment on back to audience, MES had his back to audience the entire song of Mod Mock Goth, was it? Yes I thought that remarkable when I saw that. The song What About Us blew me away completely, and I know that it proves beyond a doubt that The Fall is extant.
I love Boxoctosis, many of the songs just rock totally. My fiancee also remarked that itall sounds classic rock, which I'm not sure of, I think it is just that it is returning to a root of rock and roll sound, rather than the Old Fall surrealism, altho the lyrics are still surrealist. But so much the better, it is just great music.

I realize my commentary on the shows is like a diary entry and stream, but since a previous person reported the set dutifully, and otheres followed with precise blow by blow reportage, it's just another reaction. If you wanna see The Fall, see them, I was not disappointed at all, the show in Brooklyn was fantastic, there was nothing wrong with it. ME Smith is having a ball and so are we, the music is great and this album is awesome.

And I like this site and the msg board, I would not have known anything about the appearance if it weren't for this site. Thanks all.

It took me a while as I am severely technologically challenged, but I got there in the end (thanks to bags of help from mjungblu. What a decent boke he is.) It was worth it, the gig sounds awesome.

I've got dial-up, so I'll have to wait for the CD, I guess.

zoo

It took me ages to install it myself, even though I'm meant to be an IT professional (my managers might disagree).

I think what bamboozled me is how simple it actually is.

This is definitely software you should install. I can't speak for other IT people on this forum, but I'm sure any queries or questions would be gently treated.

One thing I did find useful was the wikipedia entry at:

Wikepedia bittorrent entry

The one thing that had me scratching my head was it looks like you get complete files for each track, but you can't actually convert them to wav files until you've downloaded the whole lot.

The Bo Diddley track doesn't really have proper lyrics yet - mostly just bits from Post Nearly Man: The CD In Your Hand & Enigrammatic Dream.

Excuse me for being a bit of a numpty, but I've managed to download the gig into pretty big 'flac' type files, but don't know what to do with them.
How do I convert them into something that I can listen too? I tried burning them on to a CD but all that I've done is created a CD that is full of nothing.
Please help.

I've got dial-up, so I'll have to wait for the CD, I guess.

zoo

ha ha me too.

Excuse me for being a bit of a numpty, but I've managed to download the gig into pretty big 'flac' type files, but don't know what to do with them.
How do I convert them into something that I can listen too? I tried burning them on to a CD but all that I've done is created a CD that is full of nothing.
Please help.

you need to convert the flac into a wav or aiff file.
please, check
http://www.etree.org/software.html

shntool should do a good conversion...

... sorry, was posted twice... so I deleted it....

This post has been edited by mjungblu on Oct 20 2004, 02:56 AM