Mark E Smith probably would not approve of a ‘tribute act’ to The Fall and so the wryly named Look Back Bores embrace that contradiction head on and just get on with the important business of creating an opportunity for fans to enjoy an unabashed celebration of the group.
Aatma, formerly the Kraak Gallery, is a makeshift but welcoming venue tucked away off Stevenson Square amid the now sprawling Northern Quarter. The venue is filling up as Look Back Bores file on stage to a soundtrack of ‘that time Mark E Smith read the football scores’ which is a nice touch. It turns out LBB have played here several times and this is becoming a regular thing – so I’ve some catching up to do.
The group (I don’t know any names sorry) appear to be a mixed age combo who clearly know this music inside out – drummer, two guitars, bass, keyboards and their masterstroke is a very simple but genius approach to the tricky business of filling the the enormous shoes of the fallen frontman. They have realised it is a job for two.
There is a younger lad with loads of attitude who has nailed down the M.E.S snarl and if he donned a charity shop jumper could pass for 1970s Mark – and he’s joined by a tall geezer who doubles up on synths, and delivers the words in a more punk-poet style, spitting the lyrics more like Jason Williamson from Sleaford Mods – they alternate between taking it in turns to lead songs or doubling up for maximum effect (a lot of Fall songs have multiple vocals of course). It works a treat, it means nobody is the absolute focal point, it’s not an impersonation it’s about putting the music across with the required amount of welly and – at times you marvel at the feat of remembering all those lyrics. As they swing into a blistering ‘Pay Yr Rates’ it is clear we are in safe hands.
The musicians are uniformly excellent, not slavishly recreating the records as this isn’t some ‘sealed knot’ re-enactment of the (post)Punk Wars – but they have the right mix of raw power and economy that Fall sound requires while also reminding us the songs are not quite as simple and straightforward as they might seem.
The set list is all about the element of surprise and it turns out, they can play anything by The Fall so we could go anywhere in the discography. There is no such thing as ‘The Best of The Fall’ and diehard fans won’t ever agree on a perfect set. Of course, in their day The Fall would never pander to fans and in later years would seldom dip into their vast catalogue. LBB wisely try and cover lots of eras and pick from as early as ‘Container Drivers’, they play imperial phase Fall like ‘Kicker Conspiracy’ and ‘What You Need’, they play the Pop Fall like ‘Free Range’ and ‘Cruisers Creek’ but also go up to later Fall years with songs like ‘Victrola Time’ (from the final Fall LP) and ‘Blindness’ which are as much fan favourites as the classical stuff.
They deliver those later songs with a particular ferocity, especially ‘Facebook Troll’ which reminds me of the final Fall line-up, those battle hardened musicians that Mark Smith stuck with for an unusually long time toward the end of his life. If The Fall had anthems they are probably ‘Totally Wired’ and ‘Big New Prinz’ both of which get performed with a now thoroughly bouncing audience providing the singalongs.
Calling them a tribute band does LBB as disservice – this is more like a counter-factual Fall that never existed. The Fall would never have done such a long, crowd-pleasing set as this and LBB make no attempt to pass this off as being anything like what a Fall gig would be like – indeed if they did they’d go on 90 mins late, the singers would mess with the musicians amps, veer off the script and then walk off half way through. It is what it is, a chance to just appreciate this astonishing music and let these songs live and breathe again in the damp, Manchester night.
As I said at the start, Mark Smith would probably hate it but then again, he’d just as likely probably offer the musicians a job playing in a future line-up of The Fall.
Looking back, but definitely not boring