Twangs for the memory

Dick Dale/The Fall | Royal Festival Hall, London

For John Peel's penultimate South Bank session he's brought together two of his heroes, two men who, like him, will clearly press on at pop music till their deaths. The contrast in spirit between Dick Dale and The Fall's Mark E Smith, though, could not be greater.

For John Peel's penultimate South Bank session he's brought together two of his heroes, two men who, like him, will clearly press on at pop music till their deaths. The contrast in spirit between Dick Dale and The Fall's Mark E Smith, though, could not be greater.

Dale's defining moment is almost 40 years past, when, with his customised, reverb-heavy guitar, he inspired riotous teenage frenzy at southern Californian clubs, helping to define the nascent surf music sound that The Beach Boys' Brian Wilson would turn into self-conscious art. The inclusion of old hit "Miserlou" on the Pulp Fiction soundtrack has since reactivated his reputation.

He's a rotund, white-haired 61-year-old now. But the first lie to his age is the delicate grace of his Cuban-heeled stage posing, like a heavyweight panther. The second is the ear-splitting volume, an indication of the alternate genealogy he represents: where surf music didn't mutate into Brian Wilson's mentally fragile symphonies, but Hendrix's heavy metal.

Even this isn't the point of him still playing such large, packed halls, though. Rather, it's the irrepressible, exuberant joy that, with the unapologetic announcement of " Pulp Fiction - Miserlou!", makes him begin a stately march from the stage through the crowd, out the auditorium and back, people standing in amazement as he passes. He stops mid-march for a middle-aged woman requesting a photo, mindful of each fan. It's an abject lesson in nightly dignity, and a career with no reason to stop.

And then, there's Mark E Smith. Still unquestioned underground pop royalty even five years ago, The Fall's singer-songwriter has descended from grace with the bruising spectacle of a tumble down the stairs. Only John Peel's patronage, fervent since the band's late-Seventies, post-punk beginnings, remains firm - to an extent now embarrassing to them both.

Hunch-shouldered and whippet-thin, Smith swiftly slouches to the side of the stage, where he proceeds to squat and prompt himself from piles of lyrics, which we then strain to hear from his slurred, smudged voice.

The current band are tight, young and keen, pounding out a sound that stretches back to rockabilly and forward to techno in expounding Smith's surreally angry, wayward words. For what's by far the most visible and prestigious Fall show in years, they give the appearance of commitment.

But Smith's own presence remains troubling. He seems like a man no longer in command of his powers, and unaware that this matters. He's just carrying on, in ever-diminishing circles, to the uncritical faithful.

Only on 1993's "Going to Spain" does the mist clear, for a beautifully sad song about an Englishman adrift and struggling abroad, compassionately sung by Smith.

Too often, though, this long, contrary career is summed up by a line mumbled earlier: "and the travesty goes on and on."