I had a fair idea of what I was in for when I went to see The Fall at Brixton’s Electric last Friday. They’re a middle-aged band from Manchester, just like the Stone Roses, or the various incarnations of New Order. In journalese, this almost makes them ‘Heritage Rock’.
I can’t remember when people started using this term, but it’s gone from the repertoire of niche music writing to being A Thing. You can’t go a week without some old beat combo or other announcing their re-formation, and in return they get a sort of protected status. Old rock music has become to the British what films about unfaithful middle-class couples are to the French. That is, culturally important but not very interesting.
Thus you know roughly what to expect from the average heritage rock gig: a lot of merchandise and much shared nostalgia. And blokes. Proper blokes. Blokes of a certain age, most of them of a certain look, dress code and smell. Paunches, ill-fitting T-shirts and the faint whiff of lives having peaked in 1982. I could picture the scene long before I got there.
But when I walked in, I realised something wasn’t right. The merchandise stall was present and correct, but there was also a sense of something …vital. Authentic heritage rock demands reverence and expectation, like Lourdes minus the fun. This, though, was most definitely a party.
There were also GIRLS. Attractive girls. Girls drinking Red Stripe and talking about, y’know, whatever it is girls talk about at leftfield pop concerts. It prompted the question: was it possible that The Fall might be a band one could describe as ‘cool’?
I was intrigued. Support acts came and went — one band’s USP was to cover the oeuvre of 1960s garage refuseniks The Monks.
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