Aston Court Festival, Bristol, Saturday, 14th July 2007

I've just returned from Ashton Court, and can report a superb Fall gig.
This was the first year Ashton Court has been priced at £15, and i wouldn't have bothered if it weren't for The Fall. It can be a nice day if the weathers nice and you're relaxing and drinking with friends, but don't expect to see any decent music there, mainly second rate pub circuit bands who've been playing Bristol for eons.
Anyway talking about bands...
The Fall played as far as i remember
Pacifying joint
Fall sound
What about us
Sparta FC
My door is open

MES walk off/return

(a new one)possible cover
Blindness

Encore
White Lighting

MES seemed to thrive on the festival crowd as they took some winning over, however after a start where MES changed the amp settings and onstage mics around so the mixing desk had no idea of the appropriate loudness of each mic, it took until after the first walkout for the sound levels to be corrected. MES won the crowd over until teens and local drunks alike cheered for several encores.
Blindness was a particular highlight as i missed it at the recent Oxford gig thinking they had finished, doh! The new one also sounded good.
The Americans (Tim & Orpheo?) weren't there, the gutarist looked vaguely familiar, has he been in The Fall before?

Overall superb, even better as it wasn't a typical Fall crowd.

Jus got back to Wales from this, great day out in the sun, topped off by seeing the might Fall.

Lineup: MES, Elena, Dave, Pete, Keiron

Most of the set was as above, but I also remember a few others:

Wolve Kidult Man
Pacifying Joint
Fall Sound
What About Us
I've Been Duped - Elena singing using a broken mic
Sparta FC
My Door

MES walk off/return after punching on stage photographer in bollocks nd arguin with some stage guy about the mic cables.

Strange Town
Over Over
Blindness

Encore
White Lighting

Much moshing took place near the front, it was unusul to see that type of crowd watching the fall, but everybody seemed to enjoy. Elena had about 4 handbags and had to lug them on and off the stage for each encore, bless. I was disappointed that they didn't play Reformation or S.T.S.R. but all in all a top gig.

Thanks for the reviews, sounds a good gig. I'm getting concerned about the absence of our American friends.

Wolve Kidult Man
Pacifying Joint
Fall Sound
Over Over
Sparta FC
What About Us
I've Been Duped

walk off/
Strange Town
My Door
Blindness
encore/
White Lightning

First time seeing the UK Fall in action.
Seemed to take until the walk off to get the sound sorted.
Other than that very enjoyable.
Some groovy dancing and extemporising from Mark.
The Group didn't seem to know how or when to stop 'White Lightning', but this was the right stuff overall.

Hear here:
Strange Town MP3

Some photos of dubious quality:

Sounds alright, couple of things though, they use the riff from Now I Wanna be Your Dog again, and the guitar solo around the 3:20 mark borrows the melody from Eye of the Tiger

Couldn'thelp being reminded of Borgeois Town as well

My, that cover sounds rocking. I just started buying Groundhogs albums, so this is a welcome surprise. And I can't believe it, but MES sounds really on form. And the "new band" (I guess?) seems to be working out quite nicely!

PLUS: Those of you that know the hogs stuff might recognize him murmuring the words to "Garden" (the groundhogs, not from PBL) in the breaks

Set List:

Wolve Kiddult
Pacifying joint
Fall sound
Over Over
Theme from Sparta FC
What about Us?
I've been duped

Encore:
Strange Town
My door
Blindman

Encore 2:
White Lightnin'

The same line up as Manchester. Plagued by a horrible mix, that got worst as mark tampered with the microphones. During Over Over the microphone was pushed into the bass drum and sounded like a carboard box being hit for the next 4 songs. No volume on El microphone, made I've been duped sound almost instrumental.

Mark in good spirits, a few adlibbed vocals abouth the band, festivals and farmers.

Some classic audience banter overheard before the first encore, people obviously felt short changed at a 30 minute set -

"This would have never happened if Marc Riley was still in the band"

"That Mark Smith gives the Welsh a bad name!!!!!"

Sunny all day, mud was sorta plasticine-like towards the end of the gig.

Second bonus was no Safi.

Otalgia

Hi, first post here and 2nd time I've seen The Fall (1st time was late 1983 at Trinity Hall, Bristol). Thought the band were great last night, been listening to the recent Ritz show so I knew what to expect and wasn't disappointed. Decided to go as soon as I saw they were headlining, it's walking distance from home so would've been rude not to...

Had to laugh when MES stood between the stage photographer and Elena and moved him away by shaking his arse - hilarious Took a few photo's so will upload them to my site along with the ones I took in '83 - it'll be a couple of weeks yet as I'm overhauling the site.

Looking forward to nosing around the forums, you seem like a friendly bunch. When the band finished last night a guy in front of me turned 'round and asked me if I was a happy man - I was, and I am.

Cheers,
DM.

ps - today's festival was cancelled due to the bad weather, read about it here and check out pictures numbered 29 to 33 here.

Sounds like the usual Consortium mix.

Whilst perhaps not the best Fall performance I've seen, this was more than made up for by seeing so many people, many of whom had never seen or even heard of The Fall, having such a fantastic time

Make no mistake, the crowd really got into it - especially after the walk-out. I reckon last night created at least a hundred new Fall Fans and indeed

Today's festival, though, as dm999 pointed out, was cancelled - it rained all night, and the mud, tolerable on Saturday, must have turned into an absolute quagmire today.

A shame, really, because the festival will lose a shedload of much-needed revenue, so it might not happen next year (it almost didn't happen this year due to lack of funds)

But if last night turned out to be the last ever Ashton Court at least it went out on a high.

D S

:applaud :

HULLO djm999 and thanks for the photos. MES looks likes he's off to an job interview later. Must say ,I like the sound of Strange town a lot.

Thanks for this!

Certainly interesting to see the gruppe headlining to a definite "non-core" audience. I thought the band were decent but lacking the polish that the American contingent have worked up during the last year or so (not a critisism - observation) and I really miss that meaty twin bass arrangement, especially during blindness.

"Fall Sound" seemed to win the crowd over nicely, I did see a few leaving during an elongated "What About Us?" but since I'd had visions of a mass exit after the first couple of numbers I think they did pretty well. Lots of moshing & dancing although I think if MES had come out & banged a saucepan for a hour a lot of folks would have got their groove on - I think many at the event had been "refreshed" in various ways... "My Door" was probably the highlight for me, although I'm always a sucker for "White Lightning".

Various comments from the crowd around me, mainly "Is that his real voice?!" etc. As pointed out above though, if you get fifty converts to the cause its all good.

As for the festival itself - well, I'm not much of a festival type but a lot of people seemed to be enjoying themselves. The organisation seemed a bit on the loose side though, we came in on the train & I didn't see a single signpost for the event in the 2 or 3 miles we walked to get there.

Always a pleasure to see board members & a special thanks to My Ballon for his guided tour of Bedminsters' taxi ranks and the Winterstoke Road - a must for any tourist in the area....

I think in retrospect it would have been better to have got a bus back into the town centre, sorry about that , but they did say there would be taxi's on Winterstoke Road.

Anyway, it was lovely to meet you and Steve again.

From today's Bristol Evening Post

HEADLINERS FALL SHORT OF HIGH EXPECTATIONS

The Fall: Main Stage

After the controversy of licences, admission fees, the alcohol ban and eventual cancellation, it seemed appropriate that the festival organisers had chosen controversial Manchester band The Fall to headline the Main Stage.

Fronted by a singer once described as the grumpiest man in pop, The Fall have always been one of the most unpredictable bands, with on-stage fights and even on-stage splits part of their 31-year history.

As one festivalgoer pointed out to me just before they took to the stage, if you were looking for a band to headline a fun-packed community festival, it's pretty fair to say that The Fall would be at the bottom of the list.

John Peel's favourite band, they remain very much a cult act that appeals to an ageing army of predominantly male indie fans.

In the three decades since their inception there have been 60 line-up changes, with only founding frontman Mark E Smith, pictured, remaining from the original line-up.

Indeed, since I saw the band's last tour in April, they appear to have lost two guitarists with this line-up consisting of just one guitarist, one bass player, a drummer and Smith's wife Elena Poulou on keyboards.

This pared-down band had a noticeable effect on the sound, which was less muscular and not as tight as recent shows.

Never a band to dip back into their extensive back catalogue, this was a typically workmanlike performance from the two most recent albums.

Anybody expecting to hear old favourites would have been disappointed and there were certainly a few bemused faces in the crowd as the band played recent songs Over! Over! and My Door Is Never from new album Reformation Post TLC.

Pacifying Joint and What About Us (a song about serial killer Dr Harold Shipman), both from the acclaimed 2005 album Fall Heads Roll were better received, as was a punchy version of Theme From Sparta F.C.

After half an hour, Smith grabbed his jacket and ushered the band off stage for a few minutes, prompting a few angry shouts from the audience.

They returned to play a monumental version of the hypnotic Blindness, followed by the rockabilly-style White Lightning, but just as they sounded like they were hitting their stride, Smith grabbed his jacket and left the stage, an hour after arriving.

The Fall have never been a festival band, more at home in dingy, dark venues, and despite occasional glimpses of brilliance (notably Fall Sound and Blindness), this was far from the rise-to-the-occasion performance some of their die-hard fans may have anticipated.

Three stars

MARK TAYLOR

online version

I know Mark Taylor, he's a lovely chap, although I think he got this a bit wrong. I think they went down very well and the band seemed to be enjoying it.

Well you can't argue with that!

Isn't this exactly what happened with The Fall in 1997?

I was dancing...

Well you can't argue with that!

It's been this way for 20+ years.

In fact I must respectfully disagree, I was down the front and there were plenty of girls loving it. (also if Evening Post reporters want to meet girls they should go to Take That concerts instead...)

There were also enough mad teenagers to start the most violent mosh pit I've seen in years. In all fairness, I didn't mean to get involved, but then I saw a friend in the thick of things who I hadn't seen in years in the middle of it all, had to say hello and the rest was a swirling of mud sweat and beer.. proper.

I thought the Fall played like filthy beasts on Saturday, general highlights:
- the band were fantastic regardless of Mark-inflicted sound problems mentioned above
- "Good evening we are the Fall from long long days.............we mean you no harm in your fluorescent jackets....."; on scintillating form throughout
- my friend dancing like he was milking a giant cow
- Audience banter: another friend trying to explain The Fall to his new and rather cute French lady-friend/colleague (couldn't quite tell which or how things were progressing..). He asked me for help at one point, I had none to give (anyone else on this forum not given up trying to 'explain' them yet?). Then the band comes on, and he just says 'look, basically that man is the most important man in England..'. A fine piece of cultural education.
- I thought I'd got bored of Blindness but Saturday's rendition was stunning