Saturday, May 20, 2006

The Fall in Pomona, May 11 2006





Introduction: Pomona (pronounced Puh-MO-nuh) is a mid-sized industrial city set near the foothills ringing Los Angeles. Early Pomona Man had a simple, pastoral culture, and cultivated vines and berries of great potency to trade with other tribes. Unfortunately, Pomona Man tended to eat most of his crops before selling them, which is why, say, nearby San Dimas Man had much nicer huts and tended not to sweat as much in cold weather. This trend has sadly carried on to the present day. Pomona's main exports are crystal meth and colorful knit caps; Pomona's main imports are crystal meth and AC/DC records. The city is notable for achieving complete invisibility in the late 1960's; no one can see it, except when the Los Angeles County Fair comes to town, because everybody loves deep fried Snickers bars.

I kid Pomona, though. They make a great funnel cake.

Now, about the Fall...

The show got pushed back an hour from its start time and they didn't open the doors until well after 8 PM. This seemed to confuse many people who were standing outside. Geez. Doesn't anybody pay attention? Anyway, Safi the video guy eventually got his stuff set up and going, but 45 minutes later than he was supposed to, according to the hastily tacked up flyer outside announcing the schedule change. Whatever. He cut his thing short by several minutes, and without even giving him time to clean his crap up, The New Fall walk out at promptly 10:30, just like the flyer said, plug their stuff in, and launch into "Bo Demmick."

Not much different from the San Diego version, except Smith comes out almost immediately and doesn't keep them churning out the riff over and over. Fashion report: Smith is dressed in all black again, except tonight he's wearing a short sleeved, button-up shirt. Like a lay minister, without the white collar. Another good version of this song, much more concise than Tuesday's.

Next, Elena plays the opening "Pacifying Joint" bars, and I think me and two or three other people in the room were the only ones to tense up. Marvel of marvels, however: the band has learned the song! Not only have they learned it, they've learned it real good. Still not my favorite song, but this is a totally presentable version of it, made all the more remarkable by the fact that this is the first time the fill-ins have played it live, not counting the abortion at Tuesday's show in San Diego.

And then, to add to the jocularity, we next get a complete, discrete version of "Midnight in Aspen." The guitarist is a little off-key here, and the bass player keeps giving him the dirty eye, but Smith seems pleased with it, singing into two mics at the same times and sort of crooning his vocals, and it gets huge applause from the audience.

Next up is "Sparta". Huge improvement from Tuesday. Vast improvement. It sounds just like Ben, Steve and Spencer used to do it, right down to the "Hey!" parts, which come from the heavily bearded bass player. He's right on cue with Elena, the drummer and guitarist are right on top of their parts, and the whole thing just rocks. Thoroughly.

Smith isn't messing with stuff so much tonight. Very little knob twiddling, no making messes of the mic cords. He's looking sort of grim, but not in an unhappy way. I'd say he looks extremely proud of himself. ("He's...uh...he's not a very nice man," the lady at the ticket booth confided to me before the show, her eyes sort of darting around nervously as she blurted it out. I assured her it was nothing she'd done. Probably. "His band is very nice, and very young," she added. "And his wife is gorgeous." The more things change, the more they stay the same, eh?)

"Mountain Energei" next, a pulsating beast of a version. Orpheo McCord, the drummer: he is the shit. I think I now believe he's the best drummer the Fall has ever had, and he's only played two shows. -> here is an imaginary picture of me shrugging helplessly. He's merciless and powerful and I bet he could carry tree trunks around with his bare hands. He looks sort of skinny and goofy, too. He does these random machine-gun fills that are just thrilling beyond words, and whenever Smith stalks up to his drum kit, he starts grinning so hard it looks like his head is going to split in two, like a South Park Canadian.

Next is "Wrong Place, Right Time." Now this is a very interesting version. It's got some of what was going on in San Diego, but all the parts fit together really well now. The bass player is strumming hard on all four strings to make a really meaty, rhythm guitar-like part, while the guitarist is playing weird effects, like echo chamber stuff and industrial noises and nothing but weird stuff. It all works really well. It's a really interesting take on this old warhorse, like nothing I've ever heard them do before.

The guitarist is doing an interesting thing tonight. For several songs (and most noticably on "Energei,") he's playing his guitar parts like Scanlon would have played them, not Pritchard. All sinewy muscle and nervous energy. Not the workmanlike garage band sound that Ben is really great at. Not totally Scanlon either, he's definitely got his own thing going on.

I have to be honest, I'm becoming emotionally attached to these new guys. It's going to hurt when they get sent back to their day jobs, or LA bands, or whatever it is they do. On the other hand, Darker My Love just minted themselves a new fan, and I haven't heard a single thing they've done.

In fact, I should call them by their names. Tim, Rob and Orpheo next launch into the second straight absolutely shredding version of "What About Us" in as many nights. The lads have this one utterly figured out. When MES and Elena come in on the chorus it's just thrilling on every level.

Then Smith walks off after about five minutes of the song. Rob (the bass player) looks alarmed and goes over to Elena. Reading his lips, he roughly asks "Now what do we do?" She roughly replies, "We leave." She picks up her bag, the boys stop playing and put their instruments down and they all leave.

The Glass House has this, well, glass partition that you can look through and see what's happening backstage. I peer through this thing and see that they're all standing around smoking and joking around.

Two minutes later, back onstage! "I Can Hear the Grass Grow," a competent and professional take, and then I'm thinking next is "Mr. Pharmacist" and we all go home.

But wait! Those are the opening bars to "Blindness"! My prayers have been answered. It starts out a little sloppy, a little formulaic, but the boys soon get the hang of it. Smith is totally inspired, doing the whole "Blindness" thing, the high-pitched "I was only on one leg," etc. Halfway through the musicians pick it up and clamp down on that crazy groove like nobody's business. They're moving with it, too, really getting into that song. It's a great song, and they're totally aware of it. Then Smith walks off again. Rob the bass player, who is emerging as sort of their leader, looks at the other guys and tells the drummer to stop playing, then he and Tim improvise for about three minutes alone, and then the drummer comes back in and they slam the crap out of the song. But then Smith comes back onstage with a slightly annoyed look on his face, turns off the guitar amp, and gestures them all offstage. They hep to and get out of there.

Wait wait wait. House lights not on yet. Second encore! They come back and do "Mr. Pharmacist," a really funky version with a slowed down tempo, and then the middle part, which is just breakneck speed. Amazing and spectacular, one of the finest versions of this song I've ever heard.

And that's it.

I'm really enjoying these shows. I know it won't last, but these new musicians have made the Fall menacing again, something that has been sorely lacking, in my opinion. There was a swagger in Pomona that just hasn't been there in years. We are The Fall, goddamit. Cast out, cast out; as if from heaven.

Notebooks out, plagiarists!

Full setlist, in case you got bored reading all that crap:

Bo Demmick
Pacifying Joint
Midnight in Aspen
Sparta FC
Mountain Energei
Wrong Place, Right Time
What About Us

First encore:
I Can Hear The Grass Grow
Blindness

Second encore:
Mr. Pharmacist

Duration: approximately one hour. Attendance: about 200

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