The Fall in San Francisco, May 14 2006

The Fall @ The Independent, San Francisco May 14 2006

Introduction: San Francisco is...screw it. You all know San Francisco, whether you've actually been there or not. Bridges, bay, quaint, postcard views, freaks. My favorite city. My least favorite place to live.

The Fall are...

But first. I drove home this afternoon. Started out as a beautiful day by the bay. 100 degrees on the other side of Livermore. A German helpfully pointed that my car was overheating in Kettleman City. He said, "Steam is coming from the engine compartment!" I guess driving 90 mph while running the air conditioning at full blast for three hours is not a good idea. Hunh. Had to drive the next 100 miles with the windows rolled down and the heat on, venting the engine all the way up and over the Grapevine...but then: LA is nice and cool and smells nice. It really smells nice at night. Really.

I wanted to tear my shirt off, pour some beer all over my chest. Facilitate the tanning process and whatnot. There might have been snow in the mountains, though, so I didn't. (California is like that, y'all.)

The Fall. Repetition. Repetition.

Repetition.

After a sort of lackluster show the night before in LA, the Fall hit the stage in San Francisco pretty much on fire, white-hot from beginning to end. Tightest show yet from this new group, and Smith has really drilled the repetition concept into them nicely. The songs they're playing simply have no point other than getting deep inside your brain and making you think about them for the next 72 days, constantly.

In that sense, "Bo Demmick" is the perfect opener for this bunch. Good move shifting it back to the leadoff spot by Smith, who is clearly doing this shit on purpose now. The boys are very obedient on this one, no "rock star theatrics" here, as some have complained about. This is Smith's equivalent of lining his students up against a wall and having them recite a speech from memory. And it works.

The followup, "Pacifying Joint," shreds the tension from the previous song apart and then introduces a completely new horror: the one-finger insistent riff. Must follow riff. MUST OBEY RIFF. There is no getting around that riff. They avoided it once, in San Diego. Now they are compelled to follow without question or be stabbed with a fork. Again, very tight version tonight; it rocks, it swings, IT OBEYS AT ALL COSTS.

Next, "MidnGURK. Uh, Sparta. Those who have been paying attention gasp excitedly! Hey, maybe we'll get some new songs tonight! This version heavy on the bass...which has become undeniably the lead instrument in the Fall again, at least this month it has. Mark steals Rob's microphone away from him halfway though the song, playfully, I think. Maybe. Later he gives it back and turns away from the crowd, laughing, and stands there shoving it into the big bearded bloke's snout. A frightened Rob starts singing every part, even the parts he didn't know he was going to have to sing--I'm still not used to hearing "English Chelsea fan this is your last game" with an American accent, though. The crowd is bouncing up and down like yo-yos.

(The audience tonight, though another packed house, is totally different than the LA crowd. There is a real good-timey current running through the whole place, a specific kind of San Francisco hivemind crowdthing that really doesn't exist anywhere else in this country, not this reliably at any rate. It's like everyone is expecting Prizes and cake at the end of the show.)

(I like everybody here. Except for this one weirdo in a gold lamé jacket who's dancing around like he's auditioning for The Gong Show, freaking everyone out by imitating "I Think We're Alone Now"-era Tiffany with the face-boxing thing, and doing really elaborately dorky bowing/prostration things in front of Mark and Elena. At the end of the set proper, he tosses his stupid jacket over Elena's keyboards and promptly gets kicked out of the place.)

(Also I'm drunk.)

(Because I have a lot of friends here tonight, and beers keep appearing in my hand, automagically, even though I didn't ask for them. I spilled an entire cup of beer early in the show, however, while I was "dancing". It's OK though! Someone gave me another!)

"Mountain Energei" follows, just a sublimely beautiful version. I'd love to hear this group record a version of this in a studio, of which the chances are: fat and zero. Really cool addition in the middle, when the bass drops out, the drums go very soft, and the guitarist jangles the main riff over MES's vocals, before everything comes back up to the upright and bolted position. Very long rendition, too, with Smith still singing well past the seven minute mark, and not much vamping from the band beyond that, mainly just crushing the groove relentlessly.

(Speaking of Orpheo McCord, some people have pointed out his tendency to do the rock-star flourish vamp thing, and I can understand why a lot of folks wouldn't like that. Me, I think he's a fantastic drummer, and I forgive his occasional mis-steps. Don't know that Smith will put up with that sort of thing for very long, though.)

"Wrong Place, Right Time," driven by the bass, exceedingly. Tim Presley's freak-out guitar is way lower in the mix on this tonight than it's been. The whole thing builds nicely, though, creating a fine tension throughout.

After this song, Smith does a crazy "ahhhh ah ahhhhhhahhhahahhhhhh" acapella thing, standing on the edge of the stage.

Then a raucous "I Can Hear the Grass Grow". I still don't like this song, sorry. Again, though, a nice version of a song I don't like. Lots of people were singing along with it, loudly, so apparently at least several people like it.

How about a ten-minute "What About Us?"? OK, let's. Here the central repetition theme re-asserts itself, grandly. If one absolute comes out of the chaos that is the U.S. Fall tour 2006, it is the complete transformation of this song into anthem and statement of purpose in a way it's never had before. The way it's being done now, it simply thrusts itself into your face while clamping your head face-forward and not letting go of you. FOR TEN MINUTES. You can squirm all you want, it's not going anywhere. It's exhausting and rewarding and an utter expression of joy, and as much as I liked all the different ways Ben, Steve and Spencer used to play it, this is going to be the definitive version for me from here on out.

On the other hand, I still don't understand the lyrics much. Why would a rabbit from East Germany be depressed about Harold Shipman knocking off old ladies? And if he was so haaaaa-py back home, why does he want to immigrate?

HOP HOP HOP! I don't care. I'M HOPPING! I'm a rabbit, look at me!

Pretty soon the entire show will be a fifty-minute "What About Us?" It will rock so hard that your nose will bleed, and make you so tired that you won't be able to clap for an encore, but they'll give you one anway, except it will just be 15 more minutes of "What About Us?" I'll still be happy. Sorta happy. Hop.

Encore:

When you assume it will be "You Wanner", you are a hume. First version of "Assume" for these guys, and it's nice and compact, though I'm really missing Ben's guitar here. Ben's version: punky and assertive. Tim's version: floaty and indecisive. He needs to really stab the lick here. Not bad, though, and I'm sure it will improve with time.

Closing out with, of course, "Blindness." Another massive version. Very dark, throbbing and intense, fueled by that old repetition. "Bo D" and "Blindness" make perfect bookmarks for this edition of the Fall. You enter a room, someone pounds on your head for ten minutes, then spins you around in circles for the next half hour, then goes back to pounding on your temples for the last ten minutes. Lovely symmetry.

Finis. Great show. Everyone leaves happy, except gold lamé jacket man.

Smithwatch: on point. He might have been a bit, ah, tipsy the night before. He's quite good tonight. No gloves, no walkoffs, very little knob-twiddling.

Elenawatch: she's wearing a polka dot dress, just like Minnie Mouse. It matches her polka dot bag (what is in that bag, anyway?)

Shortness: set is only about 55 minutes. I assume the long drive up the coast had something to do with that...scheduling back to back shows in LA and SF is dumb.

Me: this is my last review for a while. I had to leave today to get back to work tomorrow. I briefly entertained the notion of staying over another night, then driving all night to get back home. I'm feeling a bit sapped, though; emotionally draining week with all these shows and all these changes, but it's been a fantastic time, and thanks to everyone who sent compliments on all this crap I've been spewing. I'll probably see the second LA show on the 23rd, so I will likely have something to say about that one. Should be very interesting after everybody involved gets to rest for a few days.

Hop!