Meanderings of a Monkey Juggler

"...higgledy piggledy

Ahhh-welcome-ahhh.....

To herr-varn..."

Well it's happy birthday to me today and what better way to celebrate than a concert down the Charlotte.  Me and D went to watch The Fall.  And what an evening.

"Ah know, ah know, ah know, ah know, ah know..

Hey hey hey hey!"

First impressions were good.  The place was stuffed full of men in their 30's and older.  All of them looked me and D's demographic.  A band was playing as we arrived and they were excellent.  They were a 3 piece consisting of drums, double bass and sax.  Mad jazz and mental singing do go well.

"We're not Galatasaray (Hey!)

We're Sparta FC!"

Eventually the Fall stumble onto the stage without their main man.  They get cracking and he lurches into view looking very "special".  Throughout the show I was wondering who he reminds me of.  The best I could do was "a staccato John Cooper Clarke chewing a wasp".  Not a very good description; the man's definitely a one-off.

"Azerbaija-hn! Azerbaija-hn! Azerbaija-hn! Azerbaija-hn!"

The rest of the band were excellent.  The guitarist was way off to the side and looked superficial to the mayhem created.  The bassist was smack in the mddle and looking bored.  But they have a female keyboard player who was stood quietly by and looking listless and uninterested throughout. 

What to say about the music?  If you take an amateur band and ask them to find a catchy riff they could do it but few would build an entire song of just that riff.  The Fall do this and smack you into submission by sheer repetition.  The mongaloid shrieks of Mark E Smith counterpoint all of this leaving you with a clearly unique sound.  Like nothing you've seen or heard - unless you've seen the Fall another time.

Wow.  How this band have released 27 studio albums and about 100 live and retrospective albums but remains relatively anonymous is beyond me.

Have fun.

(and Happy Birthday me)