Watch The Fall breakup live on stage in 1998
The breakup of Mark E. Smith’s band The Fall was just as abrasive and bitter as their sound. At a 1998 gig at the New York dive venue Brownies, an onstage fight led the performance to become the group’s last as their core lineup.
Around 24 minutes into the set, the antics of lead singer Smith begin as he can be seen taking a break from his mic to wander towards the back of the stage. When he reaches Karl Burns at his drum kit, Smith grabs his drumsticks and throws them to the floor. The behaviour sparks a reaction from Burns, who jumps out from behind the drums and grabs Smith, pushing him into keyboard player Julia Nagle.
Bassist Steve Hanley attempts to separate and pacify the pair but to no avail. Burns and Smith shout at each other across the stage as Hanley dejectedly returns to his bass. Smith resigns himself to the back of the stage while an angry audience member grabs the microphone and shouts, “Don’t give me this gimmick shit. Fucking play”.
Regaining possession of the mic, Smith states, “What we’ve got here is a Scottish man, a fucking animal on drums, and a fucking idiot,” to which Burns retorts, “Where’s the fucking singer?”. Smith declares, “I’ve been assaulted in public, here”, before devolving into a slurred speech about his band members.
Despite the disruption, the band launched into ‘Levitate’, sans vocals from Smith, who only returns for ‘Lie Dream of a Casino Soul’. His return to the stage only sends the performance further into disarray as he takes on guitarist Tommy Crooks this time, unplugging his amp.
Somehow, the band manage to stumble through two more songs before Hanley, Burns, and Crooks abandon the stage leaving just Smith and Nagle to finish with ‘Powder Keg’. Knowingly or unknowingly, the three of them would never play with The Fall again. Burns and Hanley had both been in The Fall for around two decades. Hanley, who had helped Smith write post-punk cult classics like ‘Totally Wired’, was a huge loss.
Smith bids an agitated crowd goodbye with his sarcastic closing statement: “And the owner of the Brownies club just hopes it made three figures…” Following the gig, the brawl continued at the band’s hotel, leading management to call the police. Smith was allegedly arrested for assaulting Nagle.
While Nagle would remain in the band, releasing two more albums alongside Smith, she has since spoken on the band’s dysfunction on an online forum, stating, “There were many fracases during this time in The Fall’s history, and they were nothing to be proud of.”
The Fall continued with a new lineup made up of Smith, Ed Blaney, Ben Pritchard, Jim Watts and Spencer Birtwistle, but the 1998 formation would never reassemble.
In an interview with Jason Gross just before his departure from the band, Hanley stated, “If you’re in the Fall, you’ve got four people pushing you on… That does tend to keep you on your toes. Sometimes it can get a bit out of hand… A lot of people have gone to the way side, they couldn’t handle it. It depends on the person though. A lot of people can’t take it.”
By the time of their 1998 show at Brownies, it seems none of the band members were willing to take it anymore.
Watch the full video of The Fall breaking up live on stage below.
