The Fall

From October 2008

f I have learned anything these last 43 years it is simply this: low expectations = fewer disappointments. Go to bed in the belief that the night will be your last and waking up the next morning is a bonus. Similarly there is little point going to a concert by The Fall with any expectation beyond the hope that the band's frontman Mark E. Smith might actually turn up.

Certainly prior to last night's performance at the Queen's Hall the omens weren't auspicious. At a gig 48 hours earlier in Aberdeen support act John Cooper Clarke had failed to make it on stage (he had apparently made it to the venue, he just failed to make it to the stage) and The Fall's set was a mere 5 songs long when Mark E. Smith decided he'd had enough & buggered off. I was further concerned to hear from no more reliable a source than Edinburgh's finest sound engineer that Clarke's sense of direction had again failed him and that the afternoon's soundcheck had been notable for the absence of Smith.

But cometh the hour, cometh the man and at 9:59pm The Fall took to the stage and after a nervous wait of 2 or 3 minutes Smith himself appeared wearing trademark full length leather jacket & carrying what looked like the Sunday papers.

The Fall have what can only be described as a mystical allure for me. I don't own any of their records and would be struggling to identify any of their songs but yet this was no less than the fifth time that I have seen them. On the previous 4 occasions Mark E. Smith's performance had epitomised the words curmudgeonly & shambolic but last night he was in mellow mood, even embracing a few brave souls who jumped the stage towards the end of the hour long set.

Highlights were the one where his wife Eleni joined in on vocals (Reformation?) and the blistering second encore. If I knew what that one was I might even buy a Fall album.