The Fall 1999-05-04 Leeds, Irish Centre, Full version including encores, AUD FLAC additional info

http://thefall.org/news/990509.html

David Humphries:
Firstly, so much for his claimed 'younger' audience. Most of the people there seemed to be thirty-somethings, like myself, and Fall veterans at that. It was a very sparse stage set - no backdrop, podium, feedback speakers at front of stage. The group, positioned around the outside, seemed to be set up to give MES the maximum room to stalk round in. MES seemed to be in one of his meddlesome moods - he spent most of the concert wandering round and adjusting the settings on amps, keyboards, even at one point reaching over to the mixing desk and trying to screw that. Best song of the night was probably Big New Prinz, surely the most autobiographical of all Fall songs, which they played as first encore. Storming version, with MES putting some real feeling into it.
Best MES moment: unplugging the keyboard early on, forgetting, and spending ages trying to get it to make a noice.
Best overheard quote: from roadie fixing up MES's microphone before the gig started: "Shall we stick another cable on the end of this cos he's going to run round like a f**king idiot".
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elliot s:
antidotes on my own f-oldin money touch sensative hurricane edward the joke ten houses of eve jet boy ? mad men-eng dog antidotes(jung nev's) shake off perfect day spence big new prinz calendar ol' gang
the fall were very tight, no sign of julia though, that may have been her stoking the dat machine though, but she wasn't on with the band, good sing-a-long-a fall on touch sensative, even some audience participation with the claps on big new prinz, 3 encores, lots of bouncing around to ol' gang, mental auidence in a 4ft box in front of the middle of the stage that kept spilling out onto the stage, some members of the old guard stood around with their beer looking bored, fuckers, even stareing at us when we bounced to f-oldin money, seemed to be lots of gay men there, new guitarists are very tolerant, didn't seem to notice mark fucking with the amps, or running his mike along the strings, he started sing perfect day without his mike, then ran back to get it, lots of bits of paper falling around.Incredibly fat Mr T lookalike parted the crowd like an a-team moses to get to the front, pushing everybody out of his way. Best gig I've ever been to. beachbuggy were good, 2 drummer line up, very fall like. Rico scared the shit out of me, ruined perfectly good drumbeats with garbled sixth form poetry, "fuck rock n roll", "fuck tony blair", "fuck the law" etc... I like the new fall, but most of all I like Julia, she's what keeps them from turning into a dirge-fall guitar fest, more nagle please, Levitate is the best fall album I've ever heard,the marshall suite is more traditional, but the crying marshall shows the potential of the new line up. I'd like to see the fall put more emphasis on the beats and programming,bring back wolstencroft, dose etc. mad men-eng dog was the last fall track I expected to hear, but it sounded Ok. The band came in a very posh bus, the last thing you'd expect the fall to arrive in, I was expecting a transit van with fall written in tip-ex on the side.

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https://sites.google.com/site/reformationposttpm/gig-reviews/the-fall-live/1999/19990504--irish-centre-leeds

Mark E. Smith  
Neville Wilding 
Adam Halal  
Tom Head  
 
Anecdotes + Antidotes in B#  
On My Own  
F-'Oldin' Money 
Hurricane Edward  
Tom Ragazzi  
Touch Sensitive 
This Perfect Day  
The Joke 
Shake-Off  
And Therein 
Antidotes  
Mad Men-Eng.Dog  
Jet Boy  
10 Houses of Eve  
 New Big Prinz  
Spencer Must Die  
Calendar  
Ol' Gang  

59m

Audience Audio/Radio Broadcast

There are two versions of this in circulation. The Big Crashing Beat/Jungbluth revision seems to be the clearer whereas the Altfish version has an odd intro as is from a German radio station and is missing the encores. The Jungbluth appears to be a very clear audience or possibly a soundboard (however there is some annoying audience chatter so this is debatable) and the Altfish is definitely an audience, What I find odd is the fact that the band sounds so clear and the audience so distance so this implies the former is definitely a soundboard however there is this odd background rambling occasionally.

The line-up appears to be the quartet however there is some keyboard playing so I assume this is Helal.

This iteration of the band had its problems live and it is refreshing therefore to hear a consummately played gig from the line-up. All band members are tight and Smith is in fine form.

Its starts with a loose spacey version of "Anecdotes" dominated by wah guitar from Wilding and some excellent bass playing from Helal. "On my own" is DAT driven and features interesting spacey noodling from Wilding and long synth chords from Helal. "F-oldin'" is incredibly tight and morphs into an excellent two-fer of "Hurricane" and "Raggazi" with some bespoke synth twiddiling, heavy use of echo and good old improvy noises this leaps into "Touch Sensitive" which is delivered with extensive aplomb but has a rather odd break about 3 minutes which leads into an extended coda and much use of echo on the vocals.

"This Perfect Day" feels a little constipated in the guitar area however the drums are solid - Smith does not appear until about half way through but then delivers an excellent performance overrunning the band at the end. "The Joke" so often cocked up by this version of the band is exemplary. A venomous "Shake-Off" is the highlight for me - probably the best version of this song I have heard with Smith full of caustic bile and Wilding playing a simple chord/scratch accompaniment which works perfectly.

Mark starts "And Therein" with some muttered asides - which is delivered well but suffers from annoying audience chattering. Wilding on acoustic and Head on stripped down kit are perfect foils to a marvellous slurred version from Smith - despite some timing problems from Wilding it works very well.

"Antidotes" is very good indeed. A glorious noise fest with the guitar over-driven and Smith wailing like a banshee throughout. More canine weirdness follows with some interesting use of tapes etc building layers of sonic mayhem as Smith chatters away over the top as the band plays with the DAT and the band twitter away until Mark intones the opening lines to "Jet Boy" and the band sort of gets it together to play it - very garage and very sloppy - excellent!

"Eve" is suitably manic after the excesses of "Jet Boy" - a sort of distressed punk-rock version with Smith admirably coping with the words over a basic riff...excessive use of echo...excellent "shards" section with a "rap sort of Pink Floyd style" as advised by Mr Smith....couple of echoeys whups and then back to the riff. Damn good stuff this with Smith howling like a moonlit lycanthrope at the end.

There is a short encore call with some trancey music and some chattering from the audience and then an odd rhythmic audience participation bit and a subtle launch of "Prinz" which is remarkably well delivered for a three piece - a testament to Helal's excellent bass playing.

Some odd taped music and then a restrained introduction to "Spencer" from Wilding builds into a tense version with Smith in fine form delivering little epithets of psychedelic imagery. Band is instructed to play "Calender" and so they do - sort of - its mostly bass and drums - with Wilding providing a scratchy take on the descending chord sequence.

Ir concludes with a raucous version of "Ol gang" a breathtaking version to sign off the evenings entertainment,

Overall this an excellent gig - top notch performances throughout and a remarkable variety of material.