Brix and The Extricated @ Oslo, London, 3rd November, 2017

My 5th Brix gig! She's a legend of The Fall. Backed with other revered former members such as Steve and Paul Hanley, the band just gets mightier and mightier.

I had a different song from Brix and the Extricated's first album in my head each day in the week leading up to this, and the week after. It's an outstanding collection of new songs, livid with grinding bass and alive with the powerfully confident vocals and surefire lyrics of Brix.

Old Fall songs are in the mix live - but just three make the album: LA, Feeling Numb and Hotel Bloedel. All of which, Brix co-wrote or wrote. Hotel Bloedel was actually the first song Brix wrote - before she even met Mark E Smith. It was the song he first heard that inspired him to call her a "Genius" and invite her to join the band - when she played him a tape of it in his car one night, after they met in a bar, post-Fall-gig. So any detractors who think The Fall is all about Mark E Smith and his ego can do a runner. Brix is a talented component of The Fall past, and a remarkable force right now, on stage and performing once again.

She'll draw you in with her hectic vocal delivery, all full of intent and infused with a smashing passion and defiance.

Something to Lose has a Fall clatter intro and bursts into a percussive, driving grind, Brix carefree and singing to us directly. Steve Hanley's bass playing is obviously an almighty part of the force of the band too.

Damned for Eternity and Pneumatic Violet are catchy as hell. And Brix's persona as frontwoman doesn't need to convince anyone. She asserts her vocals half-rap style, strutting around the stage, here a punch to the air for emphasis, here a kick to emphasise her words.

I love her new t-shirt that suggests a double-meaning: LIVE.

Perhaps the best moment comes as Siobhan Fahey - one of her old pals in pop - joins the band on stage to duet with Brix. If a member of Bananarama singing Totally Wired kitted out in glitter is any Fall fan's idea of crossing a line - bring it on. Brix and Siobhan are having a ball, reeling off the lines normally ranted out by Mark E Smith. It feels like necessary defiance, rejection of the bullshit notion of only men being allowed to own guitar music and that it must be done SERIOUSLY!

But that's a fun gig climax, when everyone's clearly had a few. It's not to be forgotten that Brix is a songwriter to be taken seriously and in her own right. I celebrate every gig, every time she sings out and crushes all the times women were never afforded equal respect and the chance to take centre stage with guitars. Brix is brilliant, and bring on her rightful recognition in rock stardom.

Brix And The Extricated, Live at The Lexington, London, 4 November, 2016

My fourth time seeing Brix And The Extricated play live. [Click here for an older live review]

Tonight at The Lexington, Brix's entrance was dramatic, she sparkled from head to foot in shining headdress, glittering eye make up, twinkling gold guitar strap, and (hopefully faux !) fur coat. I have to admit to feeling emotional, even tearful - I think it was feeling overwhelmed and glad to be bestowed a female heroine, centre stage, at last. Decades of gig-going, but back in my teens and the most part of my 20s, what I would have given to have a rock goddess of a frontwoman/role model...! Chrissie Hynde has had a similarly powerful effect, in my 30s, and [I wrote about that here]

The songs and Brix's singing are so powerful. The strength of her voice, so commanding. There were only two moments where Brix lent a slower, quieter quality to her voice (as heard in The Adult Net). Primarily, Brix is unafraid to be loud and insistent, and to sing in a talking punk or rap style, and deliver everything with intent, dead serious. At one point, in a new song, she was pointing, and reaching out to the audience from lowdown, in-your-face, in a 70s punk style: confrontational, or just wanting to demand a direct communication with the audience, on our level.

With Steve Hanley's expert bass, we've obviously got another legend of The Fall. The full band sound is huge and rhythmically spectacular. Hearing songs like 2 X 4 - that rockabilly influence was one of the key things to draw me to The Fall. I'd play along, in my bedroom, with newly bought electric guitar, frantically, inspired. Now I'm dancing along, propelled in awe.

Big New Prinz is the pinnacle of the night, once again. But this time it is epic. We're led in with a slow, swirling intro, wondering what's coming next - Brix whispers the words, and we're taken aback when the song suddenly explodes into action. Winding and grinding on, hypnotic trance effect successful, the song then plays out to its end with every band member leaving one by one. First, it's Brix, and I have to smile that it's her walking out of a song a bit early and not Mark in his trademark nonchalant style. Then the instrumental chords and rhythms dwell magically, before guitar is gone... leaving only that monumental bass with drums. I think we could listen to that legendary sound all night, but soon it slows to an end, and we're left transfixed.

Watching Brix perform, again and again, as I have done, I come away feeling blessed by her confidence, self-assurance. She may be singing songs she wrote in her time in The Fall where Mark E Smith tyrannically ran the show, but now she's the frontperson, she's centre-stage. She's the star.

Brix And The Extricated, at the 100 Club, 29th May 2015

Brix was a pivotal part of many of The Fall's best creative periods. The thrill of her returning to music, with intentions to publish an autobiography, is still reverberating. A moot point for some, but for me this club gig with other former Fall members outstrips anything the Mark E Smith group have done in a decade. While Kicker Conspiracy, CREEP, Hit The North, Dr Faustus, LA, Big New Prinz, Totally Wired, Cruisers Creek are songs that wouldn't fill up a usual Fall setlist nowadays, they are played resoundingly powerfully tonight – and are all we could wish for and more. It's not the hankering for the old, but hearing these songs fronted by the almighty and wonderful Brix in such a commanding manner.

Whilst Brix is clearly reliving the glory of 80s and 90s Fall, and must have a lot of great memories, she is also buoyant about the present moment, being frontwoman, innovating a cracking set of songs. This is a new and absorbing experience. Certain Fall fans faithful to Mark E Smith as centrifugal overlord are wrongly wary. Questioning Brix's credentials is not an option: she has nothing to prove. Hearing this batch of songs and many more from those years, emphasises her imagination, ideas, contributions through several crucial epochs of The Fall. In the interim between her departure from the MES-led Fall and this current venture, Brix had a pop career – Adult Net, a sunny sounding rock act with gentle, lovely vocals that represent a different side of her – now she's here playing her favourite old Fall songs, and she's singing with more fierce force and power than Mark E Smith. Her voice is deep and dark. The intent in her delivery is full of sure-fire strength. Wilful ignorance or gendered contempt from a certain kind of Fall fan is not to be tolerated. Pining for MES ('it's not The Fall without Mark!') is tiresome. How about instead opening your ears and mind to a positive alternative from someone who was equally a key player in the finest Fall achievements? Mark E Smith is a great, but it must be admitted that the live shows have become poor: continual celebration of frothy, drunk mutterings as spectacle becomes hollow and sad (Mark can be sharper, and all the better for it).

Brix's confidence and control show her seriousness of purpose. With the celebrated Hanley brothers on bass and drums, and Fall Heads Roll era Steve Trafford on guitar, this is no tribute: this is still the music of legend very much alive. Lay of the Land is a surprise highlight of the set, and that classic, crunching, tight, rhythmic sound so definitive of early Fall kicks up a storm. Likewise, 2 X 4 is a surprise and heavyweight addition. We are spoilt with Hit the North and Mr Pharmacist - and Big New Prinz, possibly Brix's defining moment (from The Fall's most overlooked LP, I Am Kurious Oranj), is the perfect closer to a compelling gig. Brix shouting the lyric: 'He is not appreciated!' seems at odds and feels poignant (she must be appreciated!). This isn't about nostalgia because the new songs sound beyond worthy in comparison, and the old stuff has been enlivened anew. If Brix and The Extricated are to be a long-term concern, they threaten to surpass current Fall standards by a long shot. These are invigorating times.

Setlist:

U.S. 80s-90s

Feeling Numb

Leave the Capitol

2 X 4

(a new song)

LA

CREEP

Cruiser's Creek

(2 new songs)

Hotel Bloedel

Dead Beat Descendant

Totally Wired

Lay of the Land

Hit the North

Mr Pharmacist

Big New Prinz