The Fall @ Irish Centre
By Jon Watson
IIIIIIIIIINNNNN ONE! The Scaramanga Six. I haven't seen this lot for a while, and I'm looking forward to it. There's a good crowd in for them to play to, yet the start of their set is curiously low-key. The mix doesn't help for the first two or three songs, but once that's sorted out, The Six get into their stride. "The Poison Pen" sounds like an updated, besuited version of The Damned's New Rose, while "Elemental" is the stand-out track for me: brooding and moody before an aggressive explosion in their splenetic best. The Six play a fair few songs that I haven't heard before, and it's pretty obvious they've been at The Cardiacs LPs again. Sometimes a very good thing, sometimes not. One song sounds like The Stranglers. Still, never did Elastica any harm, did it? The closer - another new song - dips its toe into the decidedly murky waters of prog rock. "Is this song up its own arse?", I ask my associate. "No," he replies, "but it certainly went down there for a sniff". Indeed.
And so to The Fall. Eventually. Like half past ten eventually. Tut. They've shed a guitarist since last I saw them, so I'm immediately worried that they might sound a bit thin. It takes about a minute before I realise I'm worrying unnecessarily. The sound is big, hard, abrasive and aggressive. Like The Fall should be, I reckon.
After the customary loosener, they hit the ground running, an uncompromising "Open The Boxoctosis" followed by the jittery "All Clasp Hands". Then comes "What About Us?", a Fall classic in the making. A nagging riff, a danceable rhythm, a fluid (by Fall standards) bassline, and lyrics about "dishing out morphine" spitting out from Mark E. Smith's crumpled, snarling face. "What about us?", he hectors. "Shipman!", the band reply. Simply great. If you don't love this, check your pulse: you may be dead.
"Wrong Place, Right Time" is followed by a surprisingly straight cover of The Move's "I Can Hear The Grass Grow", before the band piles into "Theme from Sparta FC". Smith gets the verses and choruses mixed up, wanders around the stage like he's looking for something he dropped, and tries another microphone. The band pound on regardless. The drummer's more than able, the bassist is a rock, and the guitarist is flick-knife handy. A couple of new songs follow, one of them a curiously sweet reggae-type number, before we're treated to a beefed up, steroidal "Mountain Energei". At this point, we have our first stage invasion of the evening. When Smith gets to the lyric "A note from the fish said, 'Dear Dope' ...", he spits the last two words pointedly at the dickhead he's now sharing a stage with. It goes way over his head, sadly.
"Touch Sensitive" is played at a frantic pace, the guitarist laughing and shaking his head. I don't know how many Clios this song sold in its original incarnation, but this version wouldn't sell any at all. This is A Good Thing. We then get "Janet, Johnny and James", during which Smith turns the volume on the bass amp down. Then up again. Then down again. Then up again. The tinker.
The set closes with "Blindness": Smith fiddles with the bass amp again, and when he's done, the bass sounds strange. Really strange. But - crucially - it sounds RIGHT. "Blindness" builds and builds until it's a big, rumbling cacophonous juggernaut of a beast of a song. Curiously danceable, but fucked right up, polyrythmically bludgeoning the listener into dribbling nirvana. Absolutely fan-shitting-tastic. The only downside is a dickhead in a suit clambering on stage to put an arm round Smith so that his mate can take a photo with his phone. What a tit.
We get two encores: a frankly hilarious sprint through "White Lightning", and a sparkling "Dr Buck's Letter", with some improvised lyrics from Smith. Fabulous. Until, that is, we get the return of stage invader #1. Smith exits, the band follow, and the stage invader takes a seat at the drumkit before eventually being led away. My research suggests that if this interruption hadn't happened, we'd have had a third encore, and in all probability it would have been "Hit The North". You utter fucker.
This was a great gig. Top-ten marvellous. The Fall haven't been this good in years. Go and see them soon. But next time, can we have some security, please?
