Von Südenfed - Liquid Room, Edinburgh, Monday, 24th September 2007

Just Back,

Von Sudenfed tight and loud ....Played a number tracks from the album plus a few I didnt reconize...Mark E on stage about 40/60.....off stage still giving it licks through the Mic....Plenty of keyboard knob twiddling from Mark.....is anyone safe.?
Elena was videoing Marky from the balcony...thanks for the wave Elena ...made my night....also managed to get on the mike during Flooded...Top..

Off to bed now ......night night..

... and I got the "Flooded" lyric sheet that MES dropped. Wooooh!

Aye, I saw you get that- wished I had of had longer arms Does anyone know who that wild Kleenex-like band was supporting? I unfortunately only caught the last few tracks but would love to hear more.

VS were great, very powerful Dynamic sound. MES was on super form. Stuffed the mike into MOM machines producing some great feedback noise..I'm really pleased it went ahead.

Having seen them in Glasgow and Edinburgh last night was the better as ever seems to be way when Mr Smith travels east along the M8.

The support band you were asking about is the Gussets - formerly the best all girl punk combo in the capital but denuded of Silvia Substance and augmented by Ali Moniack approaching gender equality - and as you said they were mighty fine; tighter and cleaner than I've ever heard them before.

It was wonderful to observe the usual crowd of Edinburgh FFs looking somewhat disconcerted by the little gaggle of 80's dressed, twenty-ish girls with a preference for LCD and frugging over black leather coats and stationary grump.

The vocal delivery was very crisp and clearer than I've heard him live in lot of years and possibly because of it really poignant - around me grown women of stern constitutions pursed a quavering lip when during Mark sang "we love you, you're a family man, slow down Ronnie." Tremendously moving as it is when someone who never cries tells you stumblingly of all their tears unwept.

The night though belonged to Mouse on Mars with the two mice (Mäuse?) rocking upon their decks frenetic and arhythmical, black clad but with peachy white trainers. While the inadequacy of the Liquid rooms sound system prevented the bass getting deep or potent enough to percuss your chest with worrying effect for nearby cardiologists as it did on brainskin in the Arches it still thumped and fluttered. They seemed to be having a better time than any time I'd ever seen them before Andi especilly beaming at end in pleasure at making pure dance music as if they had for years been perfecting the safety features on a saab and can at last take it out and drive dangerously in. This may also have been that they were cheered from the stage, conquering gladiators, rather than booed as sunday had had it and that Mark hadn't stuck the mic in the monitor generating a scrowl that had them both whipping their cans from temples to decks

converts made and a strange keen appreciation that the frontman singing from a cupboard can be a boon

I'm very pleased for you all that Glasgow & Edinburgh gigs were good, really I am - but very pissed off that Leeds was cancelled.....been looking forward to it for weeks..... Harumph!

Can't ad anything really - VS were excellent.

More innovative than recent Fall. MES was on top shouty form,
40% on stage 45% standing to the right of the stage and the other 15% backstage and balcony.

Great VS recovery from MES knob twiddling. Everybody enjoying it.
Maybe the 40 somethings (myself included) werent pogoing frenetically (been there before) .. but the Performance WAS appreciated.

First time in Edinburgh and nice to meet new and old faces.

Brilliant!

Otalgia

Poor bobby the dog..

second all the comments about it being a great gig.

bouncer at the side of the stage had an amusingly confused look the whole way through at MES antics. enjoyed MES ushering the roadie away like a dismissed servant after him being on stage a couple of times!

rob

I'm told there will be a review in today's Herald. If someone could get a scan for the newspage that would be great, ta.

I've also received some further info about the support band, the Gussets:

"an Edinburgh band who've been on the go for about 2 years now. They've released one CDR, with another on the way apparently. They used to be totally female, with a mad Spanish drummer. The 2nd female bassist was apparently away on holiday, so that was Ali from Moniack and Kling Klang playing bass."

It's online here:
http://www.theherald.co.uk/features/featur...1714134.0.0.php

Also, this from the Scotsman:

VON SUDENFED ****
LIQUID ROOM, EDINBURGH

VON Sudenfed are a match made in Hades if you're in any way satisfied with a nice tune and a pleasant singalong chorus from your music. The ungodly creative marriage of German glitch techno duo Mouse On Mars and Mark E Smith (The Fall), the band are pure, undiluted art-rock, and not the drab contemporary version, which seemingly involves starting a rubbish indie band in your first year of art college. In form and execution, they make a statement.

Combining the dense, noisy, deeply danceable music of Mouse On Mars's Andi Toma and Jan St Werner and Smith's anti-aesthetic ranting, their songs offer no clue that any music existed before them. It should be a mess, and it kind of is, with Smith perusing his lyric sheets and ambling off stage to bark at the crowd. But such waywardness is a thrilling gob in the eye to bland commercialism. Von Sudenfed are more punk rock than anything to have crossed a stage in years, including The Fall.

DAVID POLLOCK

My humble offering now available on Dime!

Otalgia

Look forward to hearing it again. It was nice meeting you and redclaw for a beer before the gig.

It might not have been the most heavily-attended of gigs, but when the fully intact Von Sudenfed trio appeared, many amongst the crowd may have exhaled a beery sigh of relief.

In the days leading up to the show, an apparent mix-up between promoter and record label had led to at least one public announcement, quickly recanted, of the date's cancellation. Yet the presence of The Fall's Mark E Smith, an erratic presence at the best of times, amongst this most singular of supergroup's number might have been cause for many to doubt the gig's very existence until the moment it actually began.

It speaks litanies for the eclectic appeal of German electronic duo Mouse On Mars that their big stab at crossover appeal involves getting Smith, an idol of the underground cognoscenti, involved in recording with them. But the music the pair provided was truly mighty.

Although Andi Toma and Jan St Werner usually plough the more esoteric furrow of glitch techno, the breakdowns into rhythmless white noise were mere punctuation here, their set quickly developing a late-night Saturday spirit of groove-some techno in the more traditional vein.

On an autumnal Monday evening in Edinburgh, their riotous style was still enough to see a gaggle of middle-aged Fall fans attempting to assimilate a bit of foot-tapping and head-nodding into their customarily louche demeanour.

Even amidst such a synthetic squall, the cheer that went up when Smith emerged was readily audible. Shorn of his regular band, his stage presence remained intact, although that does constitute looking like a man who's got to go to work while his mates are in the pub watching the footie.

Unable to mess with Toma and Werner's equipment in the same way he bashes The Fall's kit about, Smith consoled himself by jamming his mic into the on-stage monitors, creating tremendous screams of feedback, which suited the music perfectly. At various intervals, he wandered off stage and back through the artist's entrance, barking away out of sight while the technician attempted to secure his microphone cable.

This might sound ramshackle, but it was beautifully, uproariously so. The album Tromatic Reflexxions has been described as the best Fall record of the last decade, and that's fair. Lyrically, it's Smith at or near his best. Aesthetically, the collaboration brings out the best of both parties – Smith and Mouse On Mars' music pays little homage to that which has gone before, and together they venture into wild, unfamiliar territory.

http://arts.independent.co.uk/music/review...icle3005009.ece

Look forward to hearing it again. It was nice meeting you and redclaw for a beer before the gig.

Likewise Mr Pharmacist, a tremendous evening all round.

Cheers for the Gussets info everyone, a band I shall need to see a full gig by.

Unlikely maybe, but does anyone have a dvd of this smashing gig, or the previous night in Glasgow?