The Fall

This felt like something I had to do to complete my collection. If you think of yourself as an Indie music fan you really ought to have seen the Fall. So now I have done.

I hadn't before because I was just never that keen on the Fall. It all sounds very much the same to me. And that's a lot of "same", given they have now produced 31 albums. Puts the Beatles to shame in terms of productivity. Just the quality one might argue about.

When I say the Fall, really I mean Mark E Smith. He has surrounded himself with countless musicians over the years. He is the brand.

My two companions for this gig were both Fall veterans. This had many advantages, not least the information that he doesn't come on until 10pm. And he didn't. Which gave us time for a few drinks and a meal at the Satay Bar - my regular haunt for a Brixton gig. It has a happy hour, you can generally get a table and the oriental food is decent and inexpensive. Normally I use this for gigs at Brixton Academy, but the Fall aren't in that league. This one was at the much smaller, but very satisfactory, Brixton Electric.

So what was the gig like? I have to say that Mark E Smith was far worse than I expected, but his band far better. He is really carried by the band. The very attractive girl on keyboards was especially good. Mr Smith on the other hand was a wasted, shambling wreck of a man. His voice was always "unique", but frankly I only picked out two words in the entire evening. So no way of knowing whether he remembered the words. He wandered around the stage as if totally drunk (which he may well have been), twiddling aimlessly with knobs on the sound system. The band looked on apologetically. He looked like someone who properly belonged in a old people's home, but couldn't be trusted not to set fire to it.

But the music was surprisingly good. Not to everyone's taste I am sure. Indeed not convinced it's mine. But the Fall are now in my collection.