Senior Twilight Stock Replacer
My Door Is Never
Over! Over!
Pacifying Joint
Fall Sound
Hungry Freaks, Daddy
Theme from Sparta FC
Mountain Energei
White Lightning
The Wright Stuff
Wrong Place, Right Time
Reformation!
Systematic Abuse
NOTES
Photos by Toby Jeffries
Above average audience recording courtesy of regular Fall taper Tock. Vocals are a little indistinct at times but all instruments get a good hearing. Suffers from a bit of audience chatter.
Superlatives only available for this the third night of the Spring 2007 tour.
It starts with the first hearing of a new number which is built around Tim and Rob singing “Senior Twilight Stock Replacer” in a “Baghdad State Cog Analyst” style. A basic riff overlaying heavy insistent motorik drumming from Mr McCord. Occasional howling guitar introduces Mr Smith who yells interludes over the boys and swirling synth sounds from Ms P. An instant Fall repetition classic – lets see how this one develops as the tour develops.
Interesting that Dave’s bass tends to kick things off with Tim and then Rob and Orpheo join in. “My Door” tends to develop a little variation in the lyrical areas and tends to develop in a linear fashion into a massive sprawl of sound. Eleni picks up the riff and leads the way against a clattering of bass and drums crossed with loose angular guitar stylings – Mark talks about “improvisation” half way through and I get a sense that this sound/observation reveals the freedom of the Fall to move around the core of the tune these days. Hence a lengthy reading with a great deal of variation.
The “new” driven start to “Over! Over!” complete with repeating keyboard sound and churning riff almost apes “My Door” as the band thrash into a morse code type message until Mark comes in and the tune reverts to the original descending riff. Tim gets into some serious note-bending as the band motors along at a fine pace and judders to clattering halt.
“Pacifying” comes and goes – sounds a little tired amongst all the new stuff at times – but is followed by an immense “Fall Sound” – exceptional playing and telephone trilling from Mr Smith. This is a monstrous wall of noise and is far too short. James Fennings gets a mention I think. There are some excellent alien synth sounds from Eleni and howling guitar noises from Tim.
“Freaks” is getting funkier and more ska-like as the tour progresses – less Motown and more Muscle Shoals this evening I think. In places I think Mark replaces “America” with other words – hard to discern sometimes but it feels different. This is fast becoming the centre piece of the set there are some many things happening at once on a purely stylistic basis. Followed by a fastly mutating “Sparta” which seems to take on a new sound as the tour progresses. The structure of the underlying riff appears to be shifting towards a more menacing sound as Tim ploughs the depths of his guitar.
“Mountain Energei” returns after a couple of nights off and is like Sparta before it seemingly more menacing. A quick gallop through “White Lightning” is just pure fun complete with audience participation. “Wright Stuff” suffers somewhat as Eleni’s vocal is simply not loud enough but the tune is played well. “Wrong Place” has improved considerably since Bilston – nice and short and more punchy.
“Reformation” is brutal featuring intense feedback stoner guitar motifs from the psychdelic Mr Presley. This is so good its almost too much too take……. calling up them “And this Day” demons with Smith howling improvised lines including “I’m a fifty year old man” over a tangled mass of riffs. The audience gets to join in as Tim drags long lunar notes from this guitar and someone screams balefully into the microphone. This listener feels drained after listening.
The DVD is a good audience recording shot from stage left which suffers from slightly dodgy sound and the colour is a little washed out at times due to the lights from the stage – visually great, aurally poor.
The gig concludes with a bright and bouncy “Systematic Abuse” which muddles around the riff until Orpheo kicks in to give in a centre.