After 30 brilliantly inconsistent years, Mark E Smith and The Fall make more sense than ever. It all became clear in the video mash-ups of iconic maestros James Brown, Pavarotti and Vegas-era Elvis which preceded both shows of this two-night stint. Just as visual artist and support act Safi Sniper distorts such legends, Smith puts a new twist on showbiz. Like Brown, he isn't fronting a band any more; he's the ringmaster of an old-time revue, only too willing to exploit his own shtick.
So the one-note bass-loop intro and the band's instrumental riffing prior to their leader's Nero-like entrance were all intact, as was Smith's furtive twiddling with sound levels, hiding of microphones and leaning on his wife Elena Poulou's keyboards. She remained fantastically diffident as, infant-like, Smith explored the stage, having seemingly just discovered the rudimentary properties of making a din.
What Smith and his current line-up demonstrated during their relentless sonic workouts - now fleshed out with a second bassist - was an innate understanding of stripped-down garage rock and on-stage tension. Yet while a cover of Frank Zappa's Hungry Freaks, Daddy confirmed this, beneath it all Smith's free-associative narratives remained as self-referential as a performance artist in a working men's club.
The second night's show was longer and less tense than the first - but both featured Poulou's lead vocal on The Wright Stuff, a song that sounds like The Flying Lizards doing a plummy rewrite of The Monster Mash. Even the hardest working man in showbiz needs to take a back seat occasionally.
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