Thanks go to "Pike 1957" for a very good audience recording,
Penultimate gig of the Spring 2007 and the band are in magnificent form. A massive bludgeoning beast of a thing tonight locked in perfect rhythmic ferocity.
All musicians are in fine form but particularly notable is Tim's sinuous velvety guitar sound. Notable tonight are the extended "Hungry Freaks" and the spacey kraut rock "My Door" with its sleek guitar solo intro morphing into a new lead riff. Mark is also very fond of the telephone trilling noise and most tracks get a sample of it somewhere. EPs vox on "Wright Stuff" is a little too low, however Rob has got the synth part down well and it has a nice analogue feel to it.
After "White Lightning " we get a short keyboard solo and encore break followed by a blistering, I might say unforgiving, reading of "Reformation" and then the second big surprise of the tour with the return of "Big New Prinz" after quite an absence (almost a year to the day since its appearance in Lausanne I think). The last thirty seconds of "Reformation" are simply breathtaking and then the familiar pounding riff kicks in - Mark gets his scanning wrong on the first few lines but after that it's an immense swinging version. Mark is as laconic as hell, EP plays a sultry analogue lead line and the boys throw everything behind Orpheo's backbeat. Mark improvises and the audience gets the microphone from about 3.30 in - not the best audience performance of the tour I have to say(!) until about 5.00 where there is some exemplary chorus/unison singing.
And if that was not enough after a short encore break (wherein someone close to the taper says "Wow") the band return for an immense/intense version of Blindness - Mark corpses on the opening lines and does some interesting mixing of Rob's sherman tank bass. There is quite a bit of fun being had here with Spurr doing rising bass lines and McCord bashing the life out of his drums. After a Tim/Orpheo section the basses are turned up full notch and its riotous noise until they are mixed down for the MES keyboard solo, and then kicked back up to full force for the last ninety seconds which grinds to a shuddering halt. Amazing stuff.
A worthy addition to the pantheon of great Fall gigs.