Thursday, 13 July, 1989 – Free Trade Hall, Manchester, England

Hit the North 
I’m Frank 
Bremen Nacht 
Bill Is Dead
Deadbeat Descendant 
Wrong Place, Right Time 
The Littlest Rebel
Pinball Machine 
Mere Pseud Mag Ed
Big New  Prinz 
U.S. 80s-90s 
Guest Informant 
Carry Bag Man 
Mr. Pharmacist 
Cab It Up 
NOTES
64 minutes
A medium quality audience recording which suffers from the cavernous expanse of the Free Trade Hall. Very little bass but still quite a good listen!
Now a hotel, the Free Trade Hall was a memorable concert venue for many years and The Fall played there on a number of occasions. This gig was in the main hall, a large concert hall, home to the Halle Orchestra until it moved to the new Bridgewater Hall just round the corner near the Manchester Conference Centre (aka G-Mex). Not to be confused with the Lesser Free Trade Hall which was a small concert hall in the rafters of the FTH – location of the (in)famous Sex Pistols gigs of the mid 70s, and site of Marc Riley’s last gig with the band in December 1982.
This was the second outing for the post Brix  incarnation of the group with Martin Bramah returning after a ten year absence.
An excellent gig with the band dusting over the “Frenz Experiment” – mining a bit of history from the 80s, and the second outing for the rarely played “Pinball Machine”.  “I’m Frank”, “Bill is Dead” and “The Littlest Rebel”  presage the forthcoming “Extricate”. The transition of “Fall with Brix” to “Fall without Brix” seems to have been made with little drop in form. Notably Bramah’s guitar has moved on from the sound of the early Fall to a fuller “less punk/more rock” sound which fits in well with this set.
A particularly jaunty version of “Guest Informant” dominates the set with Smith pausing in the middle to deliver some spikey words about Craig Scanlon. This is followed by a fantastic reading of “Carry Bag Man” which gets to the root of the Fall schema. Driving repetitive with polyrhythmic drumming and clashing guitar sounds underpinning Smiths intense exploration of his lyrics.
It’s a pity there is not a better recording of this.