The early years were always the best ones, I think, but even tho MES got more belligerent as he got older, there was always some kind of spectacle that would be happening when they played. In the early days of the 80s, there was the solid playing with an edge that was great and, then, in the mid 80s, I managed a record store and one of the guys who worked there went to high school with Brix and so on the night The Fall were to play, she came around to the store to hang out ... and then the concert itself, that night, was almost joyous in it’s energy. MES seemed like a happy guy and not the sloppy drunk he sometimes became at later shows (mostly, slurring lyrics to the point you had no idea what he was saying to constantly fucking with other members and their instruments while they were playing, etc...). The only time that had stopped happening during the later years was when he came out and did a whole show in a wheelchair ‘cause he had gone out a few days earlier for some cigs and fell on the ice. My wife started having doubts about going towards the end (and she’s a big fan) because she couldn’t understand what he was singing about on the tunes he wrote and was kinda uninspiring when he’d sing something he didn’t write, like Mr. Pharmacist.
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