Yahoo! Music Review

Gig played on 06/07/07

Anyone familiar with The Fall's major domo Mark E Smith will know not to expect anything resembling the conventional but this borders on the downright surreal: Smith's hunched, almost shrunken figure, is flanked by three preening drag queens - two of whom are rather worryingly sporting at least three days' growth on their faces - while behind them stand two Germans fiddling with their crotches.

Weird scenes inside the goldmine, indeed, but this doesn't even begin to cover the strangeness that confronts us: it's gone midnight, the crumpled Smith - incessantly chewing his gum to create facial features more associated with raved-up gurning - is quite clearly three sheets to the wind but, crucially, is behaving himself. Appearing only a quarter of an hour late, the usual threat of violence or dismissal that usually hangs over his band members isn't in evidence, instruments aren't being tampered with and the expected air of fear and trepidation has been replaced with anticipation and awe.

And rightly, so; Von Sudenfed - Smith's collaboration with German techno overlords Andi Toma and Jan St Werner of Mouse On Mars - is clearly yielding positive effects over and above the joy of their "Tromatic Reflexxions" album. As Mark E Smith rants and rails at the foot of the stage as only Mark E Smith can, his newfound cohorts whip up a furious electrical storm that pushes at musical barriers and sonic tolerance with an almost sadistic pleasure.

"I am the DJ tonight!" barks Smith, prompted by the words scrawled on a piece of paper in his hand. Behind him Toma and Werner churn out the bowel-mashing frequencies of "Flooded" and the kind of squeaks that play a deranged version of ping-pong inside the heads of those present. An update of Krautrock's more mechanoid aesthetics, the effect is as thrilling as it is sublime and though the feet instinctively move, tearing the eyes away from the stage is impossible.

Track over, Smith dispenses with his lyric sheet by screwing it up and tossing the ball over his shoulder and the stuttering rhythms of "Fledermaus Can't Get It" prompt the drag queens into a further series of outrageous poses and provocative struts. With each thumped beat comes a crossed leg, pout and flirt that increase incrementally with the rising power generated by the boffins at the back of the stage as Smith, his face grotesquely contorted, yells: "Can't get it now!"

And then they're gone. No encore, no words of thanks, nothing. You'd like to consider the possibility of a grand and artistic statement but in all probability, Smith's doubtless gasping to nip out for a smoke. Which, in tandem with tonight's wow of a show, is how things should be.

by Julian Marszalek