BBC 6 Music Festival Sage Gateshead 21st February 2015
Hall 1: Maximo Park; The Fall; Kate Tempest; Royal Blood; Hot Chip
Hall 2: Ghostpoet; Father John Misty; Ibibio Sound Machine; Django Django; The Cribs
Hall 3: Craig Charles; Stuart Maconie; Ady Croasdell; Richard Searling
Concourse: Kate Tempest & Eliza Carthy; Villagers; Simian Mobile Disco; Jungle; Gruff Rhys
The BBC 6 Music Festival decamped to the North East this year with events in the Academy on Friday, The Sage on Saturday and Sunday and a range of venues across Newcastle throughout the weekend. David and Shauna came up from London for the weekend, and we all (Marie, me, David, Shauna, Laura, Dale) trooped across to the Sage for the Saturday evening festivities.
The Sage had been transformed into a festival cum nightclub, with all of the halls open and simultaneously featuring music. All of the seats had been removed from the floor level of Hall 1. The first act that Marie and I caught was Kate Tempest, who was introduced by Don Letts. Now there’s a face from the past. The last time I remember seeing him was 1977 in Newcastle Students Union and he was holding a big camera, filming the Clash. He was managing the Slits at the time and went on to be a member of Big Audio Dynamite. Kate Tempest got the crowd going with her spoken word hip hop music. We wandered into Hall 3 and found Stuart Maconie playing soul sounds, and then out onto the concourse to watch Jungle. For me the highlight was Royal Blood, who made a loud intense blues noise and played to a packed Hall 1. Its hard to believe that two guys (guitar, vocals, drums) can produce such a wall of classic rock music, in the tradition of Hendrix, Zeppelin and Cream. Great stuff. The others all reckoned Hot Chip as the highlight of the night. Laura and Dale went off to the Boiler House after the Sage closed at 11pm, for further 6 Music fun.
Its great that a national event like this has chosen to come to the North East. The 6 Music festival continues today with more music around the city and in the Sage tonight.
Archive for the ‘The Fall’ Category
22 Feb
BBC 6 Music Festival Sage Gateshead 21st February 2015
10 May
The Fall York Fibbers May 9th 2013
The Fall York Fibbers May 9th 2013
Laura and I went to see The Fall last night at Fibbers in York. We had promised each other that we would attend a Fall gig as soon as the opportunity came, having missed the last couple of times they came to the north east. Laura was intrigued to see them because of their legendary status and because many of her friends are big fans, and for me it was a chance to catch up on a band that I hadn’t seen for 33 (!) years. I have to admit never quite getting The Fall. The only other time I saw them was at a gig at the Newcastle Tyne Theatre in 1980. So I felt it was definitely time to put that right. We arrived at Fibbers around 8pm as people were just starting to wander in. The support band …And The Hangnails are a local Yorkshire punk/blues outfit and warmed up the crowd well. They played a short set, starting at around 9pm. The Fall took to the stage around 10pm. I’d read some stories of Mark E Smith leaving the stage and singing some of the set from the dressing room, and mixed reports of recent performances. Last night Mark seemed to me to be on pretty good form. He snarled the vocals, and they were pretty incomprehensible at times, which I guess is par for the course. He seemed in quite a good mood, although he did leave the stage several times, returning pretty quickly on each occasion. The band all left after 7 or 8 songs, and we thought that they were not going to return, but they were soon back to play several encores. I can’t pretend to know their material but did recognise White Lightning, which the crowd all sang along to, and for which Mark was accompanied by another singer. Recent single Bury also went down well with Mark snarling and spitting out the words. Its always difficult to fully enjoy a gig when you aren’t familiar with the material, but I reckon that last night was a pretty good showing by The Fall. The crowd certainly seemed to enjoy it, and gave the band a good reception. I know that The Fall have some of the most committed fans of any band, and many will have travelled from far afield for last night’s gig. They won’t have been disappointed. I hope that the guy I chatted to earlier in the evening enjoyed it. He’d come quite far and had been a bit disappointed by a recent Fall performance at Clitheroe. Laura and I left during the encores just before 11pm and suspect we may have missed a song or two (now there’s a reason for going to see The Fall again 🙂 ). Got home around 12.30am. I think I’m starting to get them, and thinking about it, would like to see them again next time they play close by, but I really must listen to their material (which may be difficult as I see that they have released around 30 albums!). Setlist (from the Fall fansite): Victrola; Strychnine; Hot Cake; Chino; Sir William Wray; Hittite Man; Bury; Duped; Loadstones; Sparta; Kinder of Spines; Jetplane; Blindness. Not sure this is actually what was played. They certainly also played White Lightning and there may be a couple on that list that weren’t played.
4 Dec
The Fall Newcastle Tyne Theatre 1980
The Fall Newcastle Tyne Theatre 1980
Support from Cabaret Voltaire, Clicks and Flesh
I have only seen The Fall once. There I have admitted it. I fully realise that they are seen as a super cool band, Peel faves and one of the only remaining originals of the Manchester punk / post-punk days, but for some reason I have never got round to seeing them again; the one time that I did see them being over 30 years ago. I keep meaning to catch up with them, and I have an outstanding promise to David and Laura to take them to Fall gig, but each time they have been in the area something else has come up, and I guess they just haven’t been high enough on my list of priorities. Still, I am sure that it is something that I will put right some day soon, and that I will get along to see them again one day.
Anyway, back to this gig. It was a pretty full evening, with support from Cabaret Voltaire, Gary Chaplin’s (ex Penetration) Clicks and local band Flesh. The venue was the Tyne Theatre which had only recently reopened; this was the first time I attended a gig there, although I do remember my Dad taking me to see King Kong T the venue in the 60s when I was a kid, and the theatre was known as the Stoll cinema. I went with Marie and we found The Fall different, challenging, and interesting. It was around the time of At The Witch Trails and I remember them playing Totally Wired, which was the only song of theirs which I knew at the time.
As I say, this is another band who I must add to my list of Bands To See Again While I Can!
Vintagerock's Weblog. 