• Scenario
  • Assume
  • Pacifying Joint
  • Theme from Sparta F.C.
  • Mountain Energei
  • Reformation
  • What About Us
  • I Can Hear the Grass Grow
  • Wrong Place, Right Time
  • Bo Demmick
  • White Line Fever
  • Mr. Pharmacist
  • Blindness
  • Midnight in Aspen
  • Systematic Abuse

NOTES

Billed as the groups 30th Anniversary

1 hour 19 minutes

A couple of versions of audio audience recordings are available. Some whooping and hollerin’ from an obviously over-excited crowd. Smith is a bit distant and there is not much instrument separation but all in all a good record of this historic gig.

“Scenario” has come on a bit and now sounds very little like its progenitor. Smith is in fine form narrating like a Salford HST over a complex web of keyboards and singularly un-Fall like guitar. If I was being particular I would say this is very American sounding apart from the Euro techno noises emerging from Ms Poulou.

“Assume” has picked up a tad since the US tour also and is taken at a fair old lick. This is probably a better version than that on “Fall Heads Roll” with clear dynamics and a Smith taking the lead decisively.

“Pacifying Joint” a little strange. Mark sings the verse over the chorus and vice versa for the first part – it then settles down – however this is lacking chutzpah.

After that it settles down into what is a glorious Fall experience. Notable points “Formation FD” now titled “Reformation” has developed a bit of a strange keyboard line which does not seem to fit – it soon disappears as EP gets into her swirly keyboard sound. “White Line Fever” reappears for the last time as a sort of grunge rockabilly which is strangely abstract, and the fans fave “Mr Pharmacist” gets its 18 millionth outing.

A mammoth and magnificent “Blindness” gets an eleven minute workout and is simply amazing its parallel simplicity and complexity.

Encores are “Aspen” which Presley still has not quite grasped using chords rather than Pritchards picking approach – and “Systematic Abuse” which a glorious noise.

An amazing gig which veers from the inchoate to the sublime. I would argue that this version of The Fall was the most competent musically in a long while and is able to offer such a variety of style and content that the band could have gone anywhere.

06jun10_poster