Stranger things than a Fall tune being used to advertise cars are happening tonight, stranger than finally being at a gig where everyone is older than you - onstage are an instrumental band called Nought supporting The Fall who proceed in playing form free cacophony in the style of yer Mogwai’s or Sonic Youth. There are no choruses and for the main, no actual direction but somehow it works, it could be down to the sonic trickery of the guitarist or maybe just the fact that you’re hearing this in Croydon, the arse end of London.

Croydon council in the late 90’s tried to get film companies who couldn’t afford to do shots for their films in New York to come to Croydon whose "impressive" towering skyline could be twinned with the gargantuan ones of those in Manhattan. This is of course absolute rot; they wouldn’t even pass for the ghetto brownstones of Coney Island although not for wont of trying

So after 30 minutes of weird dvd mixing involving putting loads of reverb and stutter over shots of Elvis, Prince and Queen (see what he did there?), the Fall take to the stage, extremely late. 
Not as late as Mark E Smith though who leaves the band to extend the intro song way beyond what they liked. After anxious looks and probably a few ‘where the fuck is he nows’ from the guitarist Ben Prichard, he is helped through the crowd and stumbles onto the stage looking as drunk as you like.

In this post reality karaoke pop world where turgid manufactured ‘real music’ acoustic cover versions from mutant twosome Journey South and Andy the bin-man both of X-Factor shame outsell any other releases with their albums, it’s reassuring to see that The Fall have stuck around to put a stop to all that nonsense, ironic though how Andys album of  manufactured real soul music covers harks back to his days of rubbish removal as he’s still peddling other peoples shit - keep up the good work!

The crowd inevitably goes wild for the car peddling ‘Touch sensitive’ but as Mr Smith spends the majority of time scratching his head and missing the cue the momentum goes, it does however sound like a scuzzy garage rock classic which is even better live.

The same ramshackle approach is applied to ‘Theme from Sparta FC’ which is only held together by the guitarist and keyboards shouted backing vocals, thuggish enough to make the mainly ageing crowd push towards the front nearly toppling over the speakers in the process.

A genius move (or maybe he just forgot) is the fact that he’s obviously bought a pair of new trousers for the occasion and has forgotten to take the security tag off the back - there are people stupid enough in London to start doing this so hold this space!

Throughout the gig, when Mark has had enough of drooling into his microphone he indiscriminately tampers with his bands instruments and amps creating new sounds. What initially sounds like a piss-head not knowing where he is let alone what he’s doing, it is a great way of changing the mainly droning rock beat which accompanies his lyrical scowling, he’ll fuzz up the bass, and add extra keyboards. When he fancies he’ll totally drop out the guitar almost like a dj cutting up a track, it sounds brilliant and is fascinating to see him working out what sounds he wants to fuck up next.

At a swift 40 minute seven song hit-free set, there are parts of the audience outraged especially by the £15 price tag, it is however an exhilarating blast of brilliance which knows not to outstay its welcome. The guys a legend, you’ll miss him when he’s gone. 8/10

Chris Todd