Tim O Thompson: Banana Peel Hits The Fall Tour

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May 08, 2006

Banana Peel Hits The Fall Tour

Yikes–more problems are afoot on this US Fall tour. A member of opening band the Talk threw a banana peel at MES's head. Below is a verbatim report from the Unofficial Fall site.

Sonia from the Teenage Fanclub message board:

I suppose if it wasn't a specticale it wouldn't be a Fall show, would it?

The night started with the barman saying they had their liquor license pulled on Friday. Yeay. There were maybe 50-60 people at the show. $25/head on a Sunday in downtown Phoenix - no surprise. But still, it's THE FALL for fecks sake. We missed the first band, and the second sent me to the bar to stare into my coke. The ice was nice - the kind that crumbles in your mouth.

I've always liked the Fall, but wouldn't call myself a "fan," with only two or three of their how many records, and having never seen them before (not for lack of want, but for lack of availability). The show opened with promise, with a nice video/audio distortion of Queen & Elvis. Then the band came on, only to find that the keyboard hadn't been set up by the crew. Huh? WTF? Minor chaos, but fixed fairly quickly. Mark takes the stage - I had no idea he was so tiny. He seemed to be in good spirits despite the pathetically small audience, so I thought, "Okay, we might actually get to hear a few songs." Second song in (no idea what was played, sorry) and the singer from the 2nd opener (The Talk) runs on stage and throws something at Mark's head. He rips off his jacket and chases after him out the back door. And so does half the audience. And the chick keyboard player. The rest of the band keeps playing. The crowd gets pushed back in, and a few minutes later back comes Mark. We get maybe two more songs (one being "I Can Hear the Grass Grow"), and the keyboards don't seem right. Crew can't manage to get things straight, Mark and her walk off in the middle of the song. Band left alone to play out the tune (clearly they're used to it). Then they all leave and eventually keyboard chick comes back and said something about "Sorry, but we were getting violently abused and disrespected, yada yada." Hello - it was your own tourmate and the crew that did the damage, not us. She walks off in disgust, some people start chanting "USA" and that was that. Hooray - I've seen the Fall once in my life!

Here's a message from the Talk, the support band. I have no idea if the rest of the tour is off but it doesn't sound good ...

...what you don't understand is the band was quitting anyway you're lucky they played as long as they did they played for less than that a few days ago mark is a dick and his band hates him and his wife they flew home tonight without him even knowing he pulled a corkscrew on steven the bass player poured beer and ashed on their tour managers head while he was driving and tonight was his last show as well and they weren't even going to play tonight but we asked them to do it for us so don't be a dick unless you know what's going on thanks.... THE TALK