OK, another long break. My apologies for adding to the global slump in blogging, but I have been rather busy...

However, a couple of weeks ago I went to see The Fall, which is always something worth writing home about.

Lucky for you, I had a new toy to try out, an Edirol R-09 solid-state recorder, which I've been 'evaluating' for work, and despite my fears that I would be frisked senseless on the way in and end up losing it to some suited monkey, it seemed that everyone and his kid brother was photographing/recording/filming this gig, so I felt a bit of pratt pulling it out of my underpants at the bar at the beginning.

As usual, Mark E. kept us waiting, then when the gig did start, it was with a long droney ambient piece, acompanied by some projections of icons such as Elvis & Martin Luther King (and, somewhat bizarrely, Annie Lennox) looping in disturbing ways, which gradually built up to some gut churning sub-bass (alas, not captured on the recording). I'd lay good money on the whole thing having been created with Max/MSP/Jitter. The band, which featured two bass players, then broke into the inevitable thumping riffs and incoherent shouting, and then finally Mark E. ambled in and you knew that everything was going to be OK.

Like many Fall fans, I'm at a loss as to explain what it is about Mark E. Smith that is so special, but within seconds of his arrival on stage, you just know that you're in the presence of genius. My Mrs. bumped into him whilst trying to find the Ladies, and managed to get a 'hello' out of him - I'm so jealous!

Despite tales in the press of on-stage fisticuffs, the band seemed pretty comfortable with one another and remained remarkably impassive as Mark E. wondered around fooling with their instruments, re-arranging the mics etc. and just let him get on with it. Needless to say, the overall effect was pure magic, which will never quite be captured on tape, but have a listen anyway.

Once again, I'm afraid the mics were nothing special, and the acoustics at The Point (which is, after all, a converted church) are not ideal for this kind of thing, but all things considerd, the recording quality is not bad at all. as always, it's neatly edited into a gapless CD format, but I haven't attempted to name any tracks, as I only recognised a couple.
At some point I was also handed a camera, so I managed to get a couple of snaps too...

Get it here