Carling Academy, Islington (2nd night), 3rd November 2005

Hmm, just signed up to this forum and was going to upload a photo of tonight's gig, but can't work out how to do it. Any ideas?

First time I've seen the Fall in 17 years - and a lot better than expected. Anyway I'm knacked now, maybe I'll jot down some more thoughts tomorrow.

I had logged on to have a whinge about tonight's truncated set (about 45 minutes) but it would appear that on the current tour this amounts to a Neil Young-style epic. For the short time that they were on stage the band were as tight as I have seen them. I also approve of MES' strictly enforced dictat that they now stand in a confrontational straight line across the front of the stage. Someone else can provide the full setlist - essentially Fall Heads Roll plus Sparta FC, Wrong Place and Mr Pharmacist (I still enjoy this particular tradition - I know many do not). Unsettling to attend a Fall gig where one recognises every track. No doubt the are myriad punk rock justifications for the short set and I may be getting old, but when I pay £15 to see a band with nearly 30 years of material and I have to stand through a support band who sound like Evanessence and a some twat looping video clips for thirty minutes...

Band on at: 22:08

Setlist:

1. Youwanner
2. All Clasp Hands
3. What About Us?
4. Theme From Sparta FC
5. Midnight In Aspen
6. Mountain Energei
7. Ride Away
8. Mr. Pharmacist
9. Pacifying Joint
10. Wrong Place/Right Time [segues into:]
11. I Can Hear The Grass Grow
(Mark leaves)
12. Assume (instrumental)

Band off at: 22:54

Blinding set but a bit disappointed no encore. Or did I leave too early? Would have loved to have heard Blindness. My first Fall gig in 16 years or so - thanks for the pint Clayts, I owe you one!

Did anyone win the setlist compo?!

So they played for more than 12 hours?

• A big improvement on last night – a tight, sharp, focused M.E.S., back to leading the greatest band in the world.

• No tension except Mark gave Ben a bit of a push at one point (but it could have been a friendly one).

• Much knob-twiddling by Mark.

• Lyrical ad libs: something about "1776" in Midnight In Aspen and "English turf again" in WPRT.

• What About Us was a real call-and-response crowd pleaser:
– Mark: "What about us?"
– 1000 fans (and Elena): "Shipman!!"

• Only criticism: it ended on a slightly downbeat note with the instrumental Assume. An encore seemed imminent but there was a long wait with the crowd chanting "we want more" in time with the dance music tape (and a few boos), but... nothing. But overall the crowd seemed very happy with the show. And it was one of the moshiest moshpits ever.

• Walking home, clear sky over north London: the constellation Orion.

So that's a performance of 12 hours and 46 minutes. MES didn't walk off, but a retinue of servant boys tended to him throughout.

So that's a performance of 12 hours and 46 minutes. MES didn't walk off, but a retinue of servant boys tended to him throughout.

What do you mean by this? Roadies?

Hard to tell! No one predicted the exact set in the right order (this would have been a miracle), so I will study all the entries and work out who won – in the morning.

I can just imagine him not only playing a 12 hour show, but pointedly not walking off at any time, just to confound everyone who ever complained about the other gigs.

Great to meet Altfish, Clayts, Conway, Generalist, Mark, Steve Hamilton, Wayneb and the rest.

Were you there JonN?

Was I amongst 'the rest'?

Jon, if you didn't go tonight, prepare to be disappointed

Tonight, everything about tonight, was grrrreat as a certain Tiger would comment!

The band, the temperature, the beer, the people I met tonight, the gig, bloody everything!

Watch the tributes pour in and weep, stay-at-homers

Register at http://www.photobucket.com/ and you should be able to do it easily. Once you've uploaded the picture to the photobucket site, you can simply cut and paste the URL they give you into a post here, and the pic should appear.

I've been whistling and foot tapping Assume from North London back to Essex.
Tonight was excellent.
Would have liked Blindness but encores? I shit 'em.
Still the best band in the world.

but, but ..it was the best I've ever heard it - grinding through the gears - how many times did it go round? Two and a half? For me it was a high to go out on, sustenance enough from a set as intense as that.

Driving back up the motorway watching the shooting stars fall from the sky

..work in 4 hours

Some of us 'stay-at-homers' had already shelled out twice for gis that either didn't happen or were cut short.

Slightly better than the one before. And what has MES got against Assume - except that it's crap?

I will get some photos on later. Nearly got my face punched in getting them. Conway got a set list. Which one were you Stephen?

You cunts!

No, not MES.

Not The Fall.

You! Yes you!

Assuming you were one of the majority of the audience who didn't bother clapping or making a noise to get them to come back for an encore.

To be fair, not sure the complacent majority further back from the front would be avid 'fans' to be reading this board anyway.

Personally I couldn't blame him for not bothering to come back for an encore.

He hardly could have felt wanted.

I mean...to me it was an average gig.

Some gigs take a while to 'warm up' / warm to for me. This was one of them.

Don't know what it is ... MES did sing (I didn't see *any* knob twiddling at all though. Same gig, Steven? I was towards the back, but...), the band played hard, but...

Some missing ingredient between last night and the fantastic performance I saw at Brighton earlier this year.

Anyway, the thing is for me how a gig ends often defines it for me - it sets the mood I leave in that night. I saw The Fall back in December 95, and the gig seemed very average, but by the end, after a wonderful 'Life Just Bounces' (not any on recording of that night, think it was the Astoria, around 10.12.95) that cheered me right up about my then woes, I left feeling jubilant.

Last night I left feeling pissed off. . With the crap crowd.

I mean...I looked around...one of Iggy's taunts to a complacent crowd came to mind 'are you statues?'

It's not as if the crowd hadn't reacted to the rest of the gig...

There I was clapping and banging my foot on the floor to make a little noise (feeling a bit of an idiot, but what else do you do?...then checking my leg in horror when I remembered the nurse had told me earlier to relax said leg when she took the stitches that morning... )

I felt like saying, do you want him to come back onstage or are you waiting for a bus?

Jeez...

Rant over

oooh, get you.

I don't think their not coming back for an encore had anything to do with the audience. MES left before Assume and obviously had no intention of coming back.

The lizard in the front row (near Ben).

Please be nice, Stranger.

The crowd was fantastic and very, very enthusiastic – a far better response than at last year's gigs in the same venue.

Yes, he kept fiddling with the amp. Others will verify this.

As the previous night, he also forced an unwilling Ben to do another star turn on vocals during Sparta FC.

First of all, let me say that I really enjoyed last night - what there was of it.

I was right at the front (about two doors down from Clayts - nice to meet the great man by the way) and chuffed to see MES defiantly sober, band as tight as you could get. Quite a few smiles from Ben so no evidence of the much mooted 'rift' between him and Mark.

Have to mention did anyone else spot MES 'throw a few shapes' not exactly Robert Plant style but there did seem to a bit of 'vogue' thing going on. May have been having Guiness induced hallucinations tho.

while they were on they were really tight and very focused, but maybe that was the problem. The last time I saw them at the Academy they were fantastic and had this real wall of sound thing going on, it had a real hypnotic edge to it. Last night however was straight ahead garage rock - which is great but I missed that more hallucinatory vibe.

But no encore was a real let down...Can't comment on Stranger's assertion that the crowd were a let down. I was down the front, right in the pit and didn't really look back at the rest of the crowd at any point but if they were a moribund then it's a real shame. Rest assured I made as much noise as me little lungs allowed.

And yes I really wanted to hear blindness.....big time.

So yeah, spot on while it was happening but left a little bit deflated.

Met some lovely people though and me missus bought me Oranj on CD which I then went and repaid by leaving her at the bar for the entirety of the gig while I went down the front. Cheers to the bloke who then tried to chat her up for the entirety of my absence - you know who you are - she was (i think) the only non white face there. Grrr. Mind you, he did then ask us both to have a pint with him so fair play

Jamie

Nah, I pulled out at the last minute. That's all part of the unpredictable magic of me.