Mark E. Smith - Southbank Centre 16/07/08

Not a gig, a talk. Well, a conversation. Well it was supposed to be a conversation but actually it was just a complete shambles. I don't know what they expected. Let's get Mark E. Smith at the London Literature Festival, sit him down and talk to him seriously about his official biography. That'll work. Oh wait, no it won't. There's not a chance that'll work at all.

A pissed M.E.S. saunters on stage and immediately snaps the top off his chat show mic so he's just a distorted rumbling mess until eventually they give him a new one which he only remembers to use about half the time, treating the audience to the tail ends of a load of slurred mutterings. The journalist he's supposed to be in conversation with spends the entire thing being smirked at and getting his questions mocked and the whole embarrassing farce ends after about thirty minutes when M.E.S decides he's had enough and pulls apart part of the stage railings to get out because he can't remember where the door is he came in through.

Highlights include:

• Answering one of the first questions about the book by simply saying 'I dunno I ain't read it'.

• When asked to elaborate on what was written about his father and grandfather, responding 'Is that what it says? Pfff I dunno man, you know these things, you've got a certain amount of words to fill so you just have to make stuff up'.

• When asked what the time is by the journalist, replying 'Time you got a watch mate innit'.

The whole thing made for quite an entertaining evening, really. Well it was better than the last Fall gig I went to anyway.