Fall fuehrer Mark E Smith and Salford bard John Cooper-Clarke have intermittently shared bills for the best, and sometimes worst, part of 30 years.

Star rating ****
Fall fuehrer Mark E Smith and Salford bard John Cooper-Clarke have intermittently shared bills for the best, and sometimes worst, part of 30 years.

On the night, alas, Cooper-Clarke's scheduled support slot on The Fall's highest profile Edinburgh date for years was cancelled after the poet was declared AWOL following a domestic spat with his wife.

Such are the life-meets-art domestic travails surrounding the national treasures that The Fall have become. Expectations are rocked even more by whispers of a truncated 25-minute set in Aberdeen two nights before due to a flu-ridden Smith bailing out early.

Any fears of a repeat performance were dispelled by the band's prevailingly muddy workaday chug punctuated by Elenor Poulou's increasingly World In Action theme tune-style keyboard lines. Smith eventually entered imperious as ever for an oddly playful hour, in which his professional grump's mask slipped enough to reveal him clearly relishing the adoration lavished on him. On Fifty Year-Old Man, he ushered reluctant guitarist Pete Greenway to the microphone to pick up any vocal slack. During Pacifying Joint, mischief got the better of Smith as he passed a microphone to the front row, some of whom eventually spilled onstage for a hero-worshipping cuddle.

On Reformation, Sparta FC and a thrilling Blindness, it's plain that The Fall understood the base transcendent power of repetition long before the dance music revolution. And when Smith leaned on the keyboard to make a typically tuneless din, Poulou stepped back with the indulgence of a long-suffering wife resigned to her hubby's botched DIY jobs. The two shared a moment that's the rarest of sights at a Fall gig; the look of love.