When The Fall announced a string of four gigs at tiny South London shithole, The Cartoon Club, message boards devoted to the legends practically bulged with anticipation. As Gigwise turned up to witness the first of these performances clutching the hottest ticket in Croydon, tonight’s tiny crowd are expecting something huge.

Support tonight comes from upbeat punk obervationalists, The Cassettes, and Video Jockey, Resist, who plays with clips of old rock/pop icons with great results. It’s all very interesting, but there’s no room for such experimentation tonight – the audience knows what they want, and this is certainly not it.  

The minutes tick by, and the crowd, now seemingly greater than the 300 capacity, are beginning to get restless. As Mark E Smith and co. fight their way through the wall of fans to get to the tiny stage, they are greeted with rapturous applause – but there seems to be something up. Looking at the rest of the band, MES exclaims “I’ve got a revolution on my hands tonight”. Time check - 10.35 pm.

Tonight’s set is largely taken from The Fall’s latest offering, ‘Fall Heads Roll’. Opening numbers ‘You Wanna’ and ‘Clasp Hands’ are musically very tight – good job too; as ever, MES’ vocal delivery is erratic to say the least. Repeated slurs of, “We are The Fall” replace the original lyrics, MES singing if and when he chooses. The band fly into the only song not taken from their 2005 release, ‘Theme from Sparta FC’ with Mark taking long pauses to survey his adoring, if not crushed public whilst the band loop deafening riffs. Brilliantly, Mr. Smith stamps his authority on his band by thrusting the mic into various member’s faces, as if to say, "you sing when I ask you to sing."

But as the band begin to play ‘What About Us’, things onstage seem to deteriorate. Carelessly flung microphone stands result in guitarist Ben Pritchard getting unintentionally (?) hit by MES - onstage spats between the two gentlemen ensue. The song itself is again brilliantly raucous, if not confusing – the band begin playing ‘Pacifying Joint’ before returning to ‘What About Us’ in a messy medley, Mark retaining his ‘school masterly’ control over the band, playing with each of their instruments/amps, keeping them in check.  Unsurprisingly, onstage drama is never far away, and during the next track bassist Steve Trafford storms off amidst severe sound problems. The band continue to play ‘Blindness’, but a song that is driven by its fantastically grimy bassline sounds lackluster without Trafford’s contribution. MES has clearly had enough – along with wife Elena, he leaves the stage unexpectedly, pushing his way through his public. The time? 11.07pm.     

The rest of the band see out the song, but the night is over. As the lights half come up, and people half begin to leave (nobody is quite sure whether MES will decide it fitting to play any encores), feelings are mixed. Hardened Fall fans walk away ecstatic – to them this is not the shambles it may seem to anyone else. This is what one pays for, the next episode in the saga that is MES and his onstage arrogance. But to anyone else, tonight may seem like a rip off – £15 for half a set, prima donna pissy fits, and malfunctioning equipment – and who could blame them? Have we been cheated out of a show, or is this what we have come to expect from Mr. Smith? Who knows … but it’s fun finding out.