Saturday, 12 July, 1986 – Town and Country, London, England  

Barmy
City Hobgoblins
Living Too Late
US 80’s-90’s
Terry Waite Sez
Riddler!
Mr Pharmacist
L.A.
Gross Chapel-British Grenadiers
Bournemouth Runner
Bombast
Prole Art Threat
R.O.D.
Hot Aftershave Bop
Copped It
Cruiser’s Creek
Lucifer Over Lancashire
Paintwork
Couldn’t Get Ahead
Hey! Luciani

NOTES

84 minutes

Audience Audio
There are two recorded versions available

#1 has all songs
#2 is missing 15-20

The cassette version of “Bend Sinister” (BEGC75) included City Hobgoblins as track 13 and it appears on later CD releases.

Version 2 is not the best recordings in the world due to the fact that whoever did the mixing has it incredibly loud – hence the complete collapse on Barmy when Brix’s guitar kicks in.

Version 1 is the full set and some attention has been paid to the recording.

An 84 minute Fall gig with seven encores and three debuts viz: US 80s-90s, Terry Waite Sez, R.O.D.

Hard to resist really. The recording has a back of hall feel but is reasonably clear for all that.

After the first verse of Barmy matters collapse due to guitar problems. Wolstencroft and Hanley hold it together and the song motors along. However there is something seriously weird going on with Brix’s guitar which appears to be feeding back on its self in parts. When Rogers keyboard comes in towards the end the sound becomes a muddy crash of over loud instruments.

The rest would be fantastic were it not for the recording. MES is in fine form and the band are a tight and measured. A classic gig badly recorded is the best summary.

On version 2 the sound is pretty weird at an altogether different level. MES is a plate echoed reverbered cypher, Brix’s guitar creates an ululating wave throughout due to over mixing. Bass is a growling murmer, Craig is a scribbling interloper, and Rogers is occasionally audible. One of the guitars is horribly over the top throughout. Whereas the premier recording, whilst not the best recording ever. is far more palatable revealing a group revelling in its own material.

Worth it for the debuts of three key tracks and the historic length but frankly a bit of a chore to listen to in parts.

REVIEW

William Leith  (NME  July 19 1986)

Mark Smith is a bad man, and we are good men, and we love the bottomless perversity of our interaction: he tries to surprise us by doing the things we half expected him to do all along, and we love hating the fact that he is never surprised at our adulation. On this fetid night his band hammer out a beefier set of broken rock shapes than usual and bugger off sooner, but the cerebral focus of the gig is the cat-and-mouse encore strategy: they wait until we’re queuing for our coats before they come back on again. That’s the first time. Then they disappear and put up the house lights and wait until there’s a bottleneck at the door and then they’re on again. I, for one, try to wish I don’t want them to keep coming back, but it doesn’t work.

Sarky Mark and Brix, who looks like a Starbird, and the rest of their ungainly straggle have fallen upon something profound and brilliant here, something which has the effect of forcing our reactions to them to inhabit, not the usual reference points, but the gaps in between. Profound? The further The Fall fall the harder they are to fathom.

And being at the bottom means being fundamental and debased at the same time: tonight, as they scuffed their Clark’s Commandos on rock’n’ roll’s face, they could have got away with anything – monetarism, platforms, anything at all. Just listen to the tearing drums and the sound of Mark’s thin contempt and the way the guitar-break in ‘Cruiser’s Creek’ is on a continuous loop of yearned-for mistiming. Every time you see them is the best. Naturally you have to be utterly pretentious to say anything about them.