Scarily, it's fourteen years since your reviewer set foot in the titty-shaped Dome Theatre in Morecambe. Back then, he was here for the WOMAD Festival and the once-prosperous seaside resort was sagging badly. Both piers were condemned, the beach was utterly shocking and the shops were cheap and nasty.
Fast forward to 2004 and the dilapidation is almost beyond belief. Sure, the seafront's had some investment pumped in and there's a funny statue of Eric Morecambe (wot? no Ern? Come on!) which is a great excuse for an amusing photo session, but the rest of it is riddled with desperate decay. The recent Chinese cockle pickers tragedy seems like the final nail in the coffin for a once proud and notable place.
Depressingly, a similar malaise seems to have befallen JOHN COOPER CLARKE. Where once the self-styled Salford bard could entertain with ease and tease with brilliantly ribald rhyme schemes, tonight he seems on his last legs. Arriving late, he proceeds to ramble through five-minute intros to 30-second slivers and haikus, tells jokes Bob Monkhouse would have dropped from his repertoire thirty years ago and - worst of all - can't read his own writing when trying out new numbers like "Where Are You Now, Charlie Chan?"
Things briefly improve for witty, sex-change anthem "Crossing The Floor" and John finally relents for the evergreen "(I Married A)Monster From Outer Space" to close what has been an embarrassing and shambolic set. By then it's too late, though, and he makes it worse by coming back for a clueless, truncated version of "Beasley Street" accompanied by ex-Blue Orchid Rick Goldstraw's fuzz guitar. He gets away with it purely because of the crowd's goodwill, but however great we want him to be, tonight he loses the plot big time and were he an ageing relative, you'd probably accuse him of being smelly and run away as fast as possible.
Of course, Mark E.Smith has also been swatting away accusations of being irrelevant during recent years, but - artistically at least - his bloody-mindedness still pays off and since the last major personnel putsch after "The Unutterable" he seems to have got the nucleus of yet another potentially great Fall together.
Tonight, THE FALL are sharp, disciplined and characteristically uncompromising. The four musicians troop on and start as they mean to continue by crashing into a terse "Open The Boxoctosis". Mark makes his grand entrance from stage right as the intro builds up a head of steam, looking far better than on the UK dates prior to Christmas and sartorially resplendant in navy cardie, slacks and blue shirt.
The cardie's off by second tune "Telephone Thing" and - horror of horror - there's a tasty blonde onstage and bopping. Security get shut of her, but she refuses to go away, even forcing a smile from Smith when she grabs his trouser leg at one point. Received wisdom is that Mr.Smith's far more involved with his audience than usual and certainly he's well up for it tonight, with his gestures involving regular trips to the stage front and (gasp!) throwing bottles of water into the crowd. Bloody hell. Stadium rock or what, eh?
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Well no, not really, this is The Fall, after all. But it's hard-edged, engaging stuff throughout. Tunes from the recent "Real New Fall Album" ( "Green-Eyed Loco Man", "Mountain Energei" and a hypnotic "Janet, Johnny And James") mingle with choice snippets from the past, with a still-bruising "Mr.Pharmacist" muscling in early on. "Middle Mass" is chaotic, though it perks up after the change and watching Smith stalk the stage chanting "The Wehrmacht never got in here!" is undeniably a high point of the evening.
Musically, the current band are solid and capable. Drummer David Milner is an enthusiastic powerhouse; bassist Ding gives it lots of tall, dark and handsome and rumbles effectively, while the new Mrs.Smith, Elini Poulou, is tiny and glamourous behind her two small keyboards. Guitarist Ben Pritchard makes telling contributions but probably gets the roughest time from MES who repeatedly tinkers with the dials on the guitarist's amp. Several times Pritchard looks up as if to say "for Christ's sake" and spends half of encore "Big New Prinz" crouching down to re-set the controls after Smith's tampering.
Still, Smith's methods are effective. Dictatorial to the last, the tension he instils produces hard-edged, memorable results, with maybe tonight's standouts coming via a crunching version of "Bourgeois Town" and - of all things - a pulverising take of "Mere Pseud Mag Ed" from "Hex Enduction Hour."
Sarky as ever, Smith chastises Pritchard with a withering comment of "No more Sparta anymore", when the guitarist starts the intro to the song when the band are actually due to do "Mere Pseud..." instead. However, when "Theme From Sparta FC" does arrive as the first encore, it's bloodthirsty, lashing and stripped down and once again shows The Fall can thrillingly re-shape ye olde garage rock moves as and when it takes Mark's fancy.
With barely an hour up and a nervy "Big New Prinz" having wound down, they're gone. Although this was hardly a classic Fall gig - and more of a guerilla raid compared to the longer sets the band played prior to Xmas - there's no denying this was cracking stuff nonetheless. Indeed, as freezing Wednesday evenings in outmoded seaside outposts go, it probably doesn't get much better than this.
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