In these dark days where youth is cherished over talent, experience and ability, there are still, happily, one or two people who defy the prevailing trends and demand respect.
One such is John Peel, veteran broadcaster and greying eminence behind tonight's marriage of newly hip pre-rock guitarslinger Dale and inscrutable British institution Mark E Smith, accompanied by the latest incarnation of The Fall.
It's not as odd or arbitrary a line-up as it might at first appear. Both The Fall and Dale draw on rock's primal inspirations, and both sets are driven by an understanding and intuitive grasp of raw, rootsy rockabilly.
Dale cuts an unlikely Colonel Kurtz-like figure in cowboy boots, black leather jacket and bandana. His is a unique guitar technique, staccato plectrum work and outrageous string-bends lending songs like 'Ghost Riders In The Sky' an other-worldly yet abrasive quality.
Comfortable with the source of his new-found fame, he introduces 'Miserlou' as "Pulp Fiction!" and even finds time to mime a little piece of Uma Thurman's dance from the movie in between guitar licks.
That he then turns the tune into a medley that encompasses Deep Purple's 'Smoke On The Water' and Duane Eddy's 'Peter Gunn' just underlines the fact that this is a man whose innovations predate practically every lauded rock guitarist extant, yet is still able to captivate and innovate.
Smith, meanwhile, is as reliably perverse as ever. This current Fall line-up is still locked tight between rattling guitar and walking bass despite the absence of long-time sidemen Craig Scanlon and Steve Hanley, and the set draws heavily on last year's umpteenth comeback, 'The Marshall Suite', and material presumably culled from the forthcoming 'The Unutterable' LP.
Clearly enjoying himself, Smith roams the stage, his mic lead inevitably snagging on every possible protuberance, at one point causing the surreal spectacle of a clearly well-oiled front man dragging a monitor speaker half way across the stage behind him.
Yet for all his evident (to trained Fall-watchers at any rate) bonhomie, it's still easy to see why Smith has been through so many band members over the years.
Giggling to himself like an errant infant, he alters the settings of guitarist Neville Wilding's amplifier while he's not looking, totally ruining one carefully planned solo and sending Wilding scurrying over to his equipment in a state of puzzled annoyance.
You'd have thought all concerned would know better by now. "Thankfully, they clearly don't."
