Cambridge, 8th March 2005

Well, they're a piss-poor Fall covers band - all the old stuff was awful bar Prinz - but a terrific wall of noise on the new/newer stuff.

The Ol' Gang-alike What About Us, Mountain Energi, Doodak and Blindness were just fantastic. MES was down in the mix and mainly bass, drums & keys. My first Fall gig for about four years and really enjoyed it.

Just as they should be, a true wall of sound going on and on and on

Rich

Ben's amp blow up again then?

No - it was just fine, and I'd never noticed the kind of biting edge he brings to 'Grass Grow'.
The sound was perhaps the best I've heard - an equal balance between them all, including keyboards. In fact the first songs seemed to emphasise eleni's part to play - doodak, boxoxctosis, what about us?
I haven't been to a gig at the Junction since they'd refurbished it, but they 've done well - they've closed it in, made it darker.
Surprising what magic a few cloured lights can cast - the band came onto the dark stage from a door backlit by huge, round wall-light, Full Moon-like; the black back-curtain was picked out in Silk Cut purple.
green for sparta fc, and certainly at the beginning it had never sounded so ferocious - drums rising up like something in the jungle ..but then it became it's familiar self.
The new songs they played were really aggressive +punchy - one could be called reggae, but a really hard kind.
A really uncomfortable sound!!
I lost myself listening to the stuff, so can't recount facts, though there were lines about tea +coffee, the Junction and something about looking at yourself/inside yourself.
A couple of times mark turning back, looking to spen for confirmation of the next track, looking round to check with the others, before they all agreed.
Wrong place was awkward, coming after a song I can't remember, but kind of wished it was somewhere else.
mountain energei- lovely
Blindness couldn't get better, until mark walked off to end the set, the others following except spen, who just started up again - it was the best moment ..and they all just got back into it +played another five minutes of mostly keyboard solo
`
then we got what seemed to be 'green eyed loco man' - drums rolling like a train, but it turns out to be an evolved Hit The North
Granted, it wasn't the best version I've heard, but there was alot of joy going on, onstage, offstage
..they went offstage, to return for the best version of mr P I've ever heard - this time it was spen who got left behind, as the others just started playing it straight off, drums come in later..
Then mark realises he's running out of useable microphones, and howls the half of it into the air - still in time, still the same words (?!)
"White!! Lightning!!" - eleni's moment for sure
Big Prinz - mic took some time to find a home, but tom damosuzuki finally did the honours - nice one

Mark - how similar was the set to last night, so I can update t'Track record ? Ride Away is the reggae number, if that helps...

Cheers

Can't say for sure, but it was something like this:

*Bo Doodak
*Open The Boxoctosis #2
*All Clasp Hands
*What About Us ?
*Pacifying Joint
*Theme From Sparta FC
*Ride Away
*Wrong Place, Right Time
*I Can Hear the Grass Grow
Mountain Energei
Touch Sensitive
Blindness
`
Blindness extra!!
`
Mr p.
Hit the North
`
White Lightning
Big New Prinz

maybe that last bit:
`
Hit the North
white lightning
`
mr p
Big New Prinz

So they didn't play the new "Stepping Out" style song?

Actually, that makes sense because it kind of looked like an afterthought when they did play it at Middleton... and I couldn't see it on the set-list at Steve's feet (though that doesn't mean it wasn't on there). So perhaps it was a special treat for MES's birthday? But it was definitely the best (on first listen) of the new 'uns (though the others were good too), so it looks like they are saving the best new-album songs for later. Which is very promising...

my first ever fall gig.

totally incredible. loved every minute (apart from a lack of jcc).

yes - a shame that.
we'd been in the flying pig til the last minute anyway, but turned up as the man in the hat made his announcements - I guess if you'd been in there from seven/eight it might have been a long evening

yeah, especially since the pints were 3 fucking quid

indeed

there was nothing that I remember like it. There might have been a third.
One could have been early deep purple, with a heavy bass/keyboard riff; another reminded me of the Stranglers, specifically that bit in 'peaches' where the bass gets really screwed up +vocals turn into grunts.
piggy kind of thing.
..warthog/camel?

Cheers Mark : star geezer

there was nothing that I remember like it. There might have been a third.
One could have been early deep purple, with a heavy bass/keyboard riff; another reminded me of the Stranglers, specifically that bit in 'peaches' where the bass gets really screwed up +vocals turn into grunts.
piggy kind of thing.
..warthog/camel?

There was a third new song which followed on from Ride Away IIRC

I thought it was a brilliant set. I hadn't seen them since the Reading Festival debacle a few years back, so last night laid that ghost to rest. New stuff is amazing, played with real gusto.

Don't know how much Ben enjoyed MES' antics last night - afraid that he's not far off pulling a 'Karl Burns at Brownies' number on the great man.

you reckon?
He did strike me as browbeaten when he first came on, a bit uncomfortable and seemed to have the weight of the world on his shoulders - looking robert deniro in Taxi Driver - already had his guitar off at the end of ..one of the encores - but chatting at the front after he was buzzing, happy, and I think there was something about the mammoth monitor he had to play next to - right in the full blast of it

Something like "You Choose"?
Nice to meet up in the Flying Pig beforehand - tom damosuzuki, othertom, djgawbag?, athlete n.c
Pounded into submission by Led Zeppelin for an hour in the pub probably put the Deep Purple suggestion in my head - but those new tunes ..hmm ..very different.

Well, I thought it was one of the best Fall shows I've seen. Really tight playing and a great "chunky" sound. interesting comment above re The Stranglers - the sound reminded me of Hugh Cornwell's current band...

Highlight for me was "Sparta".

All in all, a top night out - shame JCC couldn't find his way from Colchester to Cambridge (it's just straight up the M11, you fool!) but that's the breaks.

Good-sized crowd, too, which was nice to see.

Fucking awesome gig!

That setlist is pretty much right, except they played a third new one, I think. However, on the setlist, I'm pretty sure it said 'Mere', supposedly as of the 'Pseud Mag' variety. Maybe MES changed his mind mid-gig, or the version was just totally unrecognisable.

Bass was thunderingly loud, sounded really good, killer job on Blindness!

Smith was on good form, making a total mess of the mic stands / leads, leaving a mangled mess in the middle of the stage by the first encore. We had the lyrics in a carrier bag being brought out thing too. I think my vocals on 'Big New Prinz' were the highlight, however!

Ben had a hard night, MES picking on him heavily in the 'onstage mixing'. Did a great job, though. I've heard many folk on here mention what a nice guy he is, and I met him for the first time last night, and I totally agree, one of the most genuinely nice blokes I've met, seemed really upbeat and smiling all over his face, despite clearly being picked on by Mark all evening.

Lovely to meet the boys from here, too! You're all wonderful people.

The new tunes were really stop-starty and fractured, kinda Krauty in a way.

I guess there's only so much you can tell just from a bassline!

..as the crow flies it's cambridge from colchester by way of halstead & Haverhill, but many perils crop up along the way.
Did anyone ever see those c4 or bbc2 bits on the east coast with jcc's verse over short films, 3, 5 years ago?
I've got about 90 seconds of one - before the automatic timer shut the video down

Last night was the first time I have seen The Fall in about six years. I have given up trying to count how many times I have seen them before that break.

I must admit that I didn't have high hopes for last night and went because it was so close to home. I expected it to be a shadow of the good old days with Smith going through the motions.

How wrong I was.....that was blistering. The bass was phenomenal, you could use that sound to destroy buildings. Smith was clearly on top of things and that was the tightest Fall line-up I have heard. It was like hearing a Fall I had always hoped for.

I think the effect could be summed up by the missus noticing that I started to use religous terminology to decribe a Fall gig. The first time back in '86 I said they were "godlike" this time "a revelation"!

It was simply fantastic - a Fall for the 21st Centuary

Right! What a review. I want to go as weeeeeeellllll...

I'm off to Leeds tonight. So what was Hit The North like then? "evolved"!?

A bit crap really.

Really basic, all stripped down.

Sometimes I like basic things which are stripped down.