Mark.E. Smith is a keen footie fan - Manchester City is his team apparently. So he will be well acquainted with that famous cliché “a game of two halves”.
So if John Motson had swapped Preston North End for Preston’s Mill and a Friday night fixture with THE FALL, he may well have called this a “gig of two halves”.
The first stanza was a curiously flat affair, almost akin to those no-score draws with plenty of pleasant football to admire but nothing to get excited about.
Certainly there was little obviously wrong about the opening half of The Fall’s set – save for an astonishingly ill-advised cover version of Frankie Valli’s "Walk like a Man" – but somehow the vibe just was not right.
And then, just like a football match which erupts thanks to a goal, Smith, musicians and audience suddenly burst into life and the second half – especially extra time in this encounter - proved a cracker.
The set list was a rum mix of golden oldies, classic singles and the choicest cuts from Smith’s latest offering, "The Real New Fall LP."
"The Theme From Sparta FC" (the latest in a long line of ace Fall football rants), "Contraflow" and "Open The Boxoctosis" were all entertaining in a head-nodding, toe-tapping way.
But it’s noticeable that the first song to energise the moshing crowd was a furious version of "The Joke", Ben Pritchard’s guitar soaring above the menacing drum and bass rhythms pounded out by David Milner and Jim Watts.
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Smith – always one to spit in the face of fashion trends - was bedecked in C&A-type trousers, white shirt and a too tight blue jumper, reminiscent of his late 1970’s “I don’t dress like a punk rocker” look.
Fittingly them, Smith blew the cobwebs off the early back catalogue to treat us to a grumbling "Middle Mass" and an incredibly brutal bash at that most brutally primitive of all Fall numbers, "Mere Pseud Mag Ed."
"Mr Pharmacist", as ever, was a highlight but it was the arrival of the encores which saw The Fall in full cry.
They raced through "White Lightnin'" before launching into a brilliant "Big New Prinz", Smith venting his spleen – “He is not fucking appreciated” – obscured at the front of the stage by a small forest of clutching arms and hands.
By now, MES was enjoying himself, tinkering with Elini Poulou’s keyboards, smashing cymbals and even turning off Pritchard’s guitar amp but his light-hearted sideshow did little to dissipate the brooding tension of a superb "Dr Bucks’ Letter."
By now, the crowd really were appreciating Smith and back came the Fall, minus Poulou, for one final encore – a rousingly direct "Bourgeois Town."
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