Tour
Dates:
12 June Ashton Witchwood
13 June Hull Adelphi
14 June Middlesborough Corner House
15 June Glasgow King Tuts
16 June Edinburgh Liquid Room
17 June Dundee Fat Sams
18 June Aberdeen Glow 303
----
Ashton Witchwood tickets available through www.ticketline.co.uk
----
London Astoria 2, 24th May
Tom:
bit lacklustre lastre last night- but that may've just been my mood. Certainly Touch Sensitive is a fine song. Pick of the night goes to F-oldin' Money. The earlier songs were good inc. one I think that must be called The Essence of Tom which eponymous hero 'desires to drive across America in a convertible' and some other lines some hilarious. Usual 'you are stuck in the crystal maze' stuff. The Joke. No inevitable, no Tom Ragazzi which is a loss. The Caterer is a neat song. But A Past Gone Mad was the seemed to be the only song that had 'a bit of fucking guts in it'. But in retrospect I don't mind that. And Therein & White Lightning. Good. Ten Houses and a neat Ol' Gang. Also good.
--
michael:
This was "Essence of Tong". Other lines include "I am reading Alex Garland's The Beach, I was a bit late with that one to be honest, but I'm working on the soundtrack for the film", "I read magazines, I am a magazine junkie, GQ, The Face".
----
sally fidget:
What a shambles !!
Started well, new instrumental, two projected screens showing heavily distorted military scenes.
Followed by Touch sensitive Neville giving the 'Hey Hey Hey Heys', Smith arrives, stuttering and mumbling, T-T-T-T-T-T-TTTUSSUNNNSETTIVV, by the look of him the LA2 had provided a formidable rider ! Dressed in a peculiar Alex Higgins style shiny two tone trouser and embroidered shirt combo.
Caterer follows, Then Cyber. Neville smokes joints donated by the crowd throughout proceedings.
Screens showing disjointed super 8 type movies, in an apocalyptic Hard Days Night style, what looked like Adam Halal dressed up as a policeman getting blasted by cameraman with Gun…Supermarket Scenes… dismemberment etc.etc.
In no particular order
Foldin' Money
Ten Houses
New One ?
Two Librans ? Smith takes a sit down at back of stage
Ol' gang - In a medley style
The Joke - Apalling Shite
White Lightning
Antidotes
Levitate
Past gone mad
Hands off Billy
Compared to March Leeds gig it was an appalling mess, Loved it anyway.
---
aln mcb:
what are you talking about - 'twere great. erm...wasn't it?
I thought it was very tight indeed through about two thirds of the set, and the slightly shambolic edge to the new stuff was ok by me
> Started well, new instrumental, two projected screens showing heavily distorted military scenes.
'twasn't actually a new intrumental - it was the last 20 seconds or so of crying marshall of the album, extended into a long instrumental - and great it was too.
> by the look of him the LA2 had provided a formidable rider !
he seemed sober to me. he's always a bit reserved at large london venues.
> Screens showing disjointed super 8 type movies,
yeah - I really liked the movie thing - I thought it worked very well.
> The Joke - Apalling Shite
but getting better - at least nev can now play the riffs about right.
---
diw:
Decent gig last night.
The new material was very promising - familiar surf/rockabilly/skiffle influences. Crystal Maze was played twice - very catchy hook, but the lyric has an MES-by-numbers feel. Adam played a blinder and his influence on the new material seems to be quite strong - a worthy successor to Doc Shanley. Mark's voice has gone, I'm afraid - and let's face it, it ain't gonna get any better - his range is now extremely narrow and he knows it, which may be why Nev's vocals are becoming more prominent (btw, the one with vocals mainly by Nev was Hands Off Billy, and featured a nice comic moment - there was no mic stand for Nev, so Mark wandered over and offered to hold his mic for Nev to use, only to withdraw it the moment Nev started to sing, which prompted the roadie to hastily set up a second mic stand). Tom solid, as ever.
One of the new numbers was a spoken-word affair which, with the Caterer and Levitate broke up a mainly hi-tempo, rockabilly-orientated set. Another new one had a bass-line that was equal parts Robbie Shakespear and Shanley. Good. Only 3 songs from MS - F-Oldin', TS and Antidotes; no Ketamin Sons, Shake Off or Perfect Day - staples from last May's tour.
Overall I thought the band was tight and compact, working as a unit. The sound was more solid, with a depth that was missing from the generally tinny sound of a year ago. Moving forward, as The Fall always must. A good evening
---
michael:
Id has said most of it really. A good gig for London. Don't know what Sally Fidget was on about, if you thought this was a shambles you've been spoilt in your choice of Fall gigs recently.
No-one's mentioned the first thing they played, the intro thing, which had a classic Bramah riff. The rest of this tight young group had been on stage about 5 minutes before some old bloke shambled onto the stage.
The videos were great, some of them really made me laugh. People being shot by a deranged cameraman, a bloke putting loads of money on a greyhound and then watching the greyhound get shot in the middle of the race (there's got to be a Fall song in that).
>. Adam played a blinder and his influence on the
> new material seems to be quite strong - a worthy successor to Doc Shanley.
This is a bit OTT! But he did impress me.
> Mark's voice has gone, I'm afraid - and let's face it, it ain't gonna
get
> any better - his range is now extremely narrow and he knows it, which
may be
> why Nev's vocals are becoming more prominent
I was pleased to see Neville didn't get to sing much, he wasn't even allowedto ruin Ten Houses. But all round I was impressed with him, he wasn't showing off so much this time.
His guitar really boosted the Levitate chorus, but that song was sluggish as ever the rest of the time. The Joke I thought was pretty good, I'm getting used to the fact that they're going to keep playing it forever but I'm still mystified. Passable was unrecognisable musically, maybe it was because the keyboards were mixed so low (all night) but it's a real rocky thing now, it's like Dave Bush never happened. Also now features the line "If I ever end up like Stuart Lee..." - you'd have put money on that, wouldn't you?
Couldn't help noticing the gents was exceptionally busy during White Lightnin - that's a bad sign, Mark, drop it, you've already got F-oldin' Money for the SingalongaMark moment. There's also a new song whose baseline is very strongly derived from Tame by Pixies.
---
Thanks to Tad Reedy for the accompanying pics. The page from the 1980 Vox magazine with the clubhopping reviews might not readable. The text doesnt say much about the fall. there are two fall pictures on the page. Its from Vox #4, which was published in Dublin by Dave Clifford.
other jpeg is a promo poster for Grotesque i dont remember how i acquired.
---
In the pre-releases (might be another Receiver job):
The Masters
The Fall
Our Price: £7.99 This item will be released on 17 July, 2000. You may
order it now and we will ship it to you when it arrives.
Audio CD (17 July, 2000)
Label: Unknown Label;
ASIN: B00004TFNK
Catalogue Number: EDMCD101
---
From the recent NME's Manchester bands feature, the section on The Fall:
THE FIVE MOST IMPORTANT MANC-POP ACTS
The Fall Opinions range on Mark E Smith - twisted genius, overrated gargoyle or reactionary uber fogey? But after almost 25 years of scalding invective and punishing garage rock, there is no denying that the most curmudgeonly Krautrock fan ever to work at Salford Docks has amassed a consistently challenging canon. Although he founded the first of umpteen Fall line-ups in 1977, Smith has always dodged punk labels and dabbled in everything from big beat to avant-garde ballet. During Madchester, Smith pointedly referred to The Fall as a "Salford band" and berated his young musical peers in the satirical polemic 'Idiot Joy Showland'.
Essential Album: Hex Enduction Hour Recent Activities: Being arrested in New York after violent fracas with ex-girlfriend; replacing entire band with unknowns.
---
Patrick Burke:
Subject: <fallnet> G. K. Chesterton-uh Dug Repetition!
I just landed Chesterton's _Orthodoxy_, & was pretty stunned to run into the following tribute to the 3 R's:
All the towering materialism which dominates the modern mind rests ultimately upon one assumption; a false assumption. It is supposed that if a thing goes on repeating itself it is probably dead; a piece of clockwork. [...] Because children have abounding vitality, because thy are in spirit fierce and free, therefore they want things repeated and unchanged. They always say, "do it again"; and the grown-up person does it again until he is nearly dead. For grown-up people are not strong enough to exult in monotony. But perhaps God is strong enough to exult in monotony.
---
Pete:
Subject: <fallnet> An Einstein.... chip. Chip!
Ah, this explains everything. Dixons, 1985. From another list:
> Date: Sun, 28 May 2000 23:22:14 +0100
> From: A Man
> Subject: The Tatung Einstein
> Hi folks,
> Someone wrote..
> "I remember seeing, but never actually knowing anyone who
> owned, a computer called "Einstein" in Dixons circa 1985; does
> anyone know any more about these ?"
> The Tatung thing, I believe, was a device that used the Amstrad
> 3-inch disk media, and if I recall was a CP/M machine designed
> kinda like the Commodore PET.
---
Chris Kovin claimed responsibility for the book cover.
------------------------------------------------------
Recent news....
------------------------------------------------------
000522 few old LP reviews
000502 bits & pieces
000424 TBLY #19 details, Prop details
000408 more Leeds reviews. WSC interview, other
interview snippets
000326 Doncaster, York, Leeds reviews, BravEar
interview (plus others)
000314 various reviews, old Liz Kershaw i/view
000224 Past Gone Mad details
000213 few bits & pieces
000130 tour details, Tommy Blake stuff
000120 TBLY #18 details, Hanley in Mojo
000110 Dragnet doylum, New Year message, etc
Old stuff: Nov 1997 - Dec 1999
Return to The Fall homepage
