Queens Hall, Edinburgh, Sunday, 12th October 2008

Set List


Chino Splashback
Wolf Kidult Man
Wings
Fall Sound
50 Year Old Man
Pacifying Joint
Ive Been Duped
Latch Key Kid
Sparta FC
Reformation
White Lightning
Carry Bag Man
Blindness


Set list not exact order.

The gig was great, sound was a bit shit at the Queens Hall, but The Fall were on fine form,

No John Cooper Clark, Flu according to the venue.
MES was on stage the whole gig though.

Calling Embra, come in Embra!
Where's yer reviews?
Oh I know, you all had such a great time and got so hammered and then there was a party back at (insert forum member's name here)'s place....
LET'S BE AVVIN YA!!!

It was awful. Felt sorry for MES. Despite all his knob twiddling and removing of mics from drums, the sound was terrible and couldn't make out his or Eleni's vocals much at all. We tried listening from every conceivable angle in the place, including the balcony! To no avail. Despite this, Blindness was excellent

Ironically, the support band's sound was better although I have to agree with an earlier comment - the lead singer was an absolute prick.

I thought last night was great, the only problem I had with the sound was when MES tossed a mic into the front row - what a cacophony!!

Smith seemed on very good form and the only sign of illness was when he slipped behind an amp to do some gargling

£4.40 a pint

It was probably a great performance but the sound was so poor it was hard to tell. Was on the balcony for the 1st few songs, could only really hear the snare drum and the bass properly - almost no guitar. MES vocal very muffled, which is perhaps poetic justice as he fiddled with the guitarist's amp as soon as he came on. Frustrated by the sound, we moved downstairs. It was a bit better, we could at least hear a bit of the guitar but overall just not good enough.

Highlights for me: Theme from Sparta F.C., Carry Bag Man. Oh, and I finally got to hear Wings live.

£4.40 for the dearest pint, anyway...

I was at Aberdeen and it was 150% better - full set - steamin all the way
I wasnt that worried about the sound quality - what do you expect - Albert Hall?
Believe MES was drinking water from where I was on the balcony looked like H2O nothing else
Great set - but something should have been thought out regarding the sup[port
Milophobia - thrash going nowhere , doing what 6 songs - they wont get to the NME awards next year - so lostprophets your spot is safe - then a gap of approx
50 mins of nothing but Patti Smiths anthology - surely would have been getter to have had silence for an hour - then support , then straight into the The Fall
Mush improved from Aberdeen - mcsterling stuff - bring on Hackney

Maybe there's not many reviews here today because everybody's looking for a
"Queens Hall, Edinburgh" thread title perhaps?

For what its worth, I thought last night's performance was top notch. I went there expecting the usual run-through of new / old material but what I saw and heard by far exceeded that. And from where I was standing the sound was nowhere near as bad as earlier posters are making out.

The Queens hall can be a soulless place when its only half full but it must have been a near sell-out last night and I thought the sound and atmosphere were as good as it gets for an Edinburgh Fall show these days. Yes, good to hear Wings again - but its not a patch on how it used to be played, and Carry Bag man has never been a classic in my book. White Lightning and Blindness were standouts for me.

PS - £4.40 a pint - I'll take it any day if you're getting Peroni rather than the 'Tennents lager-or-nothing' choice you get at the Liquid room for £3.50 !!!!

I've just got back home from last night's Edinburgh gig.

Another blistering performance from the groop. Yes, the sound wasn't perfect (it was notably worse than it was in Aberdeen on Friday). But on the plus side they did play a full set.

Aberdeen's Evening Express had described M.E.S as being 'ravaged by age' in their review of Friday's Aberdeen gig. Last night, however, he appeared to have been miraculously re-energised - its amazing what a few Beecham Powders can do.

It's also notable that M.E.S seems to be attracting an increasing number of fans who want to jump up on stage and hug him (a la Morrissey). This happened on three occassions during last night's gig (although it might have been the same person on stage twice - I'm not sure). Anyway, quite surprisingly M.E.S seemed to take this in good humour - although he did seem a bit embarassed.

So overall, another great gig. My only (minor) criticism was the lack of new material - although a revamped version of Carry Bag Man did partially make up for this

Am I alone in worrying that a new Fall tour is underway and we have a grand total of one new song in the set so far?

Draft Peroni and The Fall in the same place?

Can't be bad.

No, you're certainly not alone in that respect.

Pacifying Joint? Sparta? I'm sick of 'em.

I do laugh these days whenever the 'MES work ethic' myth is given an airing. For the last few years I really don't think it's been the case.

Then again, it's not as if he really needs to do much work to keep it fresh: bang out some lyrics, and ask the group to find some new tunes (... do they have any?).

Sounds good fun! Would have hoped for a couple more new uns though. Hopefully they'll be peaking York/Holmfirth time!

Great stuff. Mark certainly looked a bit less peaky than on Friday.

Will never tire of hearing Blindness at a Fall gig...

Steep drinks... but then, this was the Queen's Hall...

...and what the fuck were milophobia about? Singer was a total tube...

Bit harsh, he's released 4 albums and an autobiography in the last 12 months.

Bit harsh, he's released 4 albums and an autobiography in the last 12 months.

Four albums? Which?

As far as I know, the autobiog involved him sitting in a pub for a few sessions and then letting the ghost writer get on with it.

In any case, how long does it take him to have a word with the group and ask them to learn or write some stuff so as to shake the setlist up a bit?

Actually not the last 12 months, the last 18. Sorry.

reformation post tlc
von sudenfed
imperial wax solvent
smith & blaney

Fair enough the autobiography was a let-down, but recently the amount of musical output has been astonishing, and that includes two great LPs (I haven't heard smith & blaney yet so can't comment).

I think to criticise MES/The Fall for only performing one new song at these gigs is a tad bewildering. Regardless of what you think about quality he's pretty much peerless in terms of turnover, and this is 30 years into his career.

Maybe I haven't seen them enough recently, but I'm gagging to hear them do Blindness, Carry Bag Man and White Lightning at least. (And I hope JCC recovers in time for Hackney)

My point is that The Fall used to be one of the only groups brave enough to evolve and change regardless of what the audience may have wanted or expected. Entire sets would virtually be binned almost as quickly as new material was written. I saw them in 1985 when most of the set was drawn from TNSG and less than a year later it had almost all been replaced by songs from Bend Sinister.

Nowadays I go to a Fall gig expecting to hear Pacifying Joint, Sparta or Reformation which, for me, dilutes a little of what's been so great about their shows in the past.

It won't stop me going to see them of course, but I do feel less slightly less excited about it these days.

My point is that The Fall used to be one of the only groups brave enough to evolve and change regardless of what the audience may have wanted or expected. Entire sets would virtually be binned almost as quickly as new material was written. I saw them in 1985 when most of the set was drawn from TNSG and less than a year later it had almost all been replaced by songs from Bend Sinister.

Nowadays I go to a Fall gig expecting to hear Pacifying Joint, Sparta or Reformation which, for me, dilutes a little of what's been so great about their shows in the past.

It won't stop me going to see them of course, but I do feel less slightly less excited about it these days.

Seconded.

Again, MES doesn't need to do any work for the set to be freshened a bit, he just needs to give the band a metaphorical nod/shove.

Is he/are they really still excited at playing 'Pacifying Joint'? If he is/they are, then I figure there's something wrong. That song must have been a fixture in the set now for 3 and a half years. It's easy to get the impression that they're just playing it because it's the easy and familiar thing to do.

Review in The Herald:

http://www.theherald.co.uk/search/display....l_edinburgh.php

http://edinburghnews.scotsman.com/latestne...ated.4584810.jp


The Fall, Queen's Hall: Dedicated Smith keeps the crowd enraptured



Published Date: 13 October 2008
By Martin Lennon
VERY few acts could really serve as an appropriate support for such a unique band as The Fall these days. For the show last night at the Queen's Hall, no less than two had been booked, but sadly, John Cooper Clarke – the great 'punk' poet had fallen ill, and had to withdraw, to the dismay of many.

This left a gaping, unfilled hole of around an hour and a half between the raw energy of relative newcomers, Milophobia and Mark E Smith's relentless steamroller of a band. So devoted were The Fall fans though, that they simply refuelled once again at the bar, and waited patiently, discussing which of the band's 27 studio albums were the best.

51 year old Smith is the one and only constant member of The Fall. Famously quoted as once saying, "If it's me and your Granny, it's The Fall," he was fortunate on this occasion to have, not someone's Granny, but one of the tightest bands this side of The Blockheads behind him, including third wife, Elena Poulou on keyboards and vocals.
Dave Spurr's thunderous and frightening bass was given a helping hand from Smith at one point, as the vocalist seemed to play with the tone controls on the bass amplifiers, threatening to shake the building's foundations. A 'big sound' doesn't even begin to describe what emerged from the four instrumentalists.

Songs like Wolf Kidult Man, Theme from Sparta FC, I've Been Duped and the self referential 50 Year Old Man kept the unusually varied crowd pogoing and moshing for the entire set, including a fairly rare three song encore.

Towards the end it became clear that Smith's reputed grumpiness was either undeserved, or the infamous curmudgeon had mellowed over time, because not only did he not complain when a few fans invaded the stage, he even gave one of them a cuddle.

I'm with John TVFSR; I would have thought that more new material would have been previewed by now instead on relaying on stuff from the line-up before last.

Reformation was essentially recorded two years ago and IWS was recorded twelve months ago. They started the Reformation promo tour with Senior Twilight Stock Replacer from the next album.

Perhaps the new stuff hasn't been fully worked out for live performance yet and they are just warming up live before they try it out? Hope so. One of the joys of seeing The Fall 'between albums' has always been experiencing the new material, and seeing how it changes before the recorded version appears.

It's on Dime now...