Saturday, 12 July, 2003 – Echo Lounge, Atlanta, USA

1. Behind the Counter
2. Telephone Thing
3. Green Eyed Loco-Man
4. And Therein
5. Contraflow
6. F-‘Oldin’ Money
7. Kick the Can
8. My Ex-Classmates’ Kids
9. Theme from Sparta F.C.
10. Mr. Pharmacist
11. Janet, Johnny & James
12. Mere Pseud Mag Ed
13. Big New Prinz
14. I Am Damo Suzuki
15. There’s a Ghost in My House
16. I’m Going to Spain

NOTES

• 01:16:38

• Soundboard of exceptional but varying quality – I think – there is some serious noise distortion and skipping on the version I have during “Kick the Can”.
• After bashing out the “Behind the Counter” riff for what seems like an age Mr Smith joins the merry throng with insouciant aplomb. “Trigger Happy” are insulted.

REVIEW

Garbled cackling introduces a motorik wah fest of “Telephone” …Milner loses the beat at one point, but other than that a competent work-out. “To wear Chanel you have to shave first”…….indeed…feedback, riff, chords, vocals lost lyrics slewed across the rhythm…at one point seemingly lost and then back to form, and then drifting again. Loco in parentis.

And the next one is….”And Therein”….the bastard idealogue of Colin Crompton – incoherently coherent as a guitar lost in some reverb jungle plays out of tune Wes Montgomery to MES as Johnny Cash. Back beat drives a mad coughing and whupping barn dance – “When will we get to Oklahoma daddy?” asks little Veronica as the band plays cruel music for the dancing fools…old mad Simon feeds the horses as we dream of the green fields beyond the mountains.

“Contraflow” – the band is playing the song – Mark joins eventually in after he has done some odd improv. Lot of growling – whats clear is that the “key don’t fit” and Ben’s skanking guitar is perfect. This is slurred and sludged and dense and intense and it should last longer. Excellent.

“F-oldin'” is fast and maybe a little rushed and morphs into “Kick the Can” – some evidence of placement of microphone in bass drum area. “Kids” rocks along nicely. Mark instructs “Sparta” and indeed it rolls out in its primal form – some excellent backing vox from the boys and EP.

Hey! the band play “Mr Pharmacist” – what a surprise? It’s a bit slovenly. Great version of “Janet, Johnny etc” MES isn’t loud enough though and its cut down by – one assumes the omnipresent live mixing of the guitar – some nice synth from Eleni. Mark sort of does of the intro to “Mere Pseud” which features some weird portamento synth fx. A bit rushed and oddly muted.

Odd opening to “Prinz” – drums and synth only – strangled guitar comes in about 1:20. Strange sort of jerky feel to the tempo/rhythm and then at 2.10 Milner picks up the back beat and it sort of resolves into a mordant quick-step. Its like layers and layers are being built to a driving pulse – after 4:20 MES appears to give it some meaning but adds some strange vocal dynamics – what is missing is the usual swing that this tune has – its funk has been removed. 12 minutes…….

As is that were not enough seven minutes plus of “Damo” follows – suitably driven – but features Mr Smith complaining about lack of efficient microphones and two million pounds worth of equipment behind the stage – two minutes in it gets back to a normal but very speedy version of the song. “Ghost” follows with some bravado but beset with microphone problems and some timing issues from the singist.

After a tape and some encore calls – we get an accapella version of Spain accompanied with hi-hat from Dave Milner – wacky and wonderful.

Mad, bad and dangerous to listen to. A must for any serious Fall fan.