The Fall / Mclusky / Jarcrew - London Barfly @ Monarch - 2/2/04
4/5
By: Thomas Hannan
We don't really know whether we're here out of reverence or curiosity to be perfectly honest, but be it either, there was little doubt that this was a triple-bill worth raising an eyebrow at.
Apart from two of Britain's most fierce, emergent guitar acts in support, we get a rare glimpse at one of music's most utterly mysterious, impenetrable stalwarts as the headliner. We should know more about them, we admit, but back-catalogue is one of such a foreboding size that any attempt to confront it is quite daunting. As such, we'll treat this as a chance to be educated, rather than to reminisce.
But first, a glimpse of the future comes in the shape of Jarcrew, a shining light of hope for anyone still mourning the demise of The Dismemberment Plan or the way Liars used to sound. Visually, it's all over the place - quite literally running at you, caressing your chests and dancing on your feet. Singer and keyboard-wiz Kelson Mathias makes use of an excessively long microphone-lead to, how shall we put this, march like a man possessed through the crowd, something it's become plain that every band should do. And oh yes, the music. What music... despite the conspicuous absence of a bass-player, Jarcrew are unnervingly wonderful, jittering around with razor-sharp guitars, drums that bring the funk and keyboard swoops from an altogether higher plain. We could fall in love here.
As Mclusky well know, trying to follow that with anything similar would be somewhat daft. So instead they arrive and are themselves daft, as manically obnoxious as ever and although much more of the straight up, heads-down-rock-n-roll clan than their predecessors, by far the most fearsome proposition on the bill tonight.
'Lightsabre Cocksucking Blues' gets things off to a shattering start, 'To Hell With Good Intentions' provides a crushing end - so yes, we get the old stuff, which we already know is faultless (apart from 'Collagen Rock', which is even better than we remember it), but surprisingly it's the new that invigorates most. They're refining an art you see, hooks are becoming more difficult to avoid, and - lo and behold - some melody is even creaking in from some quarters. But have no fear, just when they're bashing out something so sumptuous it's beginning to sound like 'Train In Vain' by The Clash, they continue on the mission to corrupt the nation's youth with the year's first truly great offensive chorus - 'our old singer is, a sex-criminal...' Sing it, kids.
There's building up suspense and then there's just getting an audience annoyed, and the amount of time The Fall take to come onstage tonight is most definitely the latter. Then the band arrives without their singer (basically the only member of the ever-changing line-up who anyone here tonight can name) and play a simple riff for a good few minutes to themselves. It's looking like it could all go so wrong, before Mark E Smith stumbles on to the platform to claim the crown of the most intoxicated person in London that night, mutters something inaudible in to the microphone and squints at us, to resounding cheers. It fits. In a bizarre way, it's perfect.
So 'Open The Boxoctosis #2, from the current 'Country On The Click' record, eventually kicks things off flawlessly. Yet it takes a while to suss The Fall out (in honesty, days later, it's still unclear whether you got the right picture), but there are some instantly notable elements). Let's leave 'vocals' to the side for one minute; the band play with hugely impressive precision, and hold the entire thing together. And what they actually exert, in large, is gutsy, catchy guitar pop-music, and that's the part in which it becomes evident why the ensemble are oft cited as one of the most influential acts of the past couple of decades.
From oldies such as 'Mr. Pharmacist' to the newer likes of 'Sparta F.C.' (arguably, the only good song ever written about football), there's always a shout-along chorus just around the corner. But it's the guy doing the shouting (and spitting, and falling over...) who really grabs the attention. Smith's is an incomprehensible drawl, at once both venomous and apathetic, and very few others could get away with it. Hell, it might not even be particularly good, we're not entirely sure. But just why is it so mesmerising?
It beats us. But things about indie music in general do seem to fit more now. So we decide to play along, and shout 'White Lightning' in union with everyone else. Sometimes, you don't really want to understand.
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