A soundboard recording of exceptional quality.
A simply superb recording of the American tour of '83 capturing the band at the zenith of its powers etc. Mark is exceptionally clear and every nugget of poetic genius is captured in pristine condition. Listening to this a quarter of a century later it still holds up as a piece of unique and sustaining musical genius as relevant now as it was then.
Some very good drumming from Burns/Hanley P which bubbles away polyrhythmically below Smith, the excoriating guitar of Scanlon, the insistent bass of Hanley S, and the cack handed keyboard antics of Smith ME. Either Scanlon or Hanley P pick up the keyboard duties as required.
Every track is played with effortless well honed efficiency - not to say that it is any way mundane - more that it is well practised and confident in its delivery. It's difficult to pick out any highlights given that all the material is presented so well. It is interesting to reflect on the fact that some ten gigs later at the Hacienda the band was far more introspective and less effusive.
Some things to reflect on perhaps start with the tension in Strife Knot which transcends from Hex in Beefheartian form and lends itself to exceptional Smithy dynamics evoking a claustrophobic feeling in the listener as the band strips it down to a stuttering finale. Chilling in fact.
Mr Scanlon commences the head expansion stuff with the insistent chittering of the Casio VL-Tone (£39.65 from your local electrical retailer - batteries not included)....the Casio sets the pace and the gruppe takes it at hideously fast pace...until Mr Smith advises Mr Scanlon to turn that bloody blimey space invader machine off. Intense and unforgiving and brilliant.
Black grey household pets twirl round and reveal the observational nature of the word play of early eighties Smith...the band as a vehicle for this intense and unrelenting verbal battering - words as syllables as bullets of sound. Scanlon's guitar a chiming orchestra of complicity. Para religious examination of (Prestwich) Village life as the cultures clash around the end of Moor Lane and up to Singleton Road and MES scrapes his hand up the magic piano.
J Hills Satanic Reign gets a good kicking. I wonder if Boiled Beef and Carrots sports management realised this nugget of wisdom when inviting the meister on to extract the micturant from R Stubbs head topiary? A great version of this classic track and again the TMR Beefheart reference is slipped in by CS with some compliance from SH.
And then perhaps the most complete piece of Fall material from the 80s gets a ten minute run. Built around Steve's circular riff and then pulse (pre-echoing the pulse of What About Us? a generation later) and Marks insistent and consistent polemic. There are some quite explicit references to individuals and their sexual proclivities herein which have echoed across the Fallscape in recent years - pre-cog? Worthy of an article in "The Pseud Mag" I would venture. Some great percussion interplay and light and shade pervade from five minutes in and then some extended extemporisation from MES. Extended atonal keyboard manipulation follows.
Life at the top of the A56 gets a good reading with particular venom - and some expressive and guttural trilling from Mark. Quickly followed by a menacing but chirpy read of "Mere Pseud".
An amazing gig - highly recommended. Dodo-Vodo-Photo!!