FAT DOG + STAR CITY – CHALK, BRIGHTON 14.2.25
It’s been 644 days since my first memorable Fat Dog encounter which happened on Brighton Beach on Friday 12th May 2023 at 10:30pm as part of ‘The Great Escape’ new music festival. Back then, those that were present were in the know! This was a treasured secret as yet to be discovered act that was ours and ours alone! But I knew it in my bones, that Fat Dog were destined for a massive trajectory and this was confirmed when they made their TV debut on ‘Later with Jools Holland’ on 8th June last year when they performed ‘All the Same’ and then on 7th October their sound was validated when ‘Match Of The Day 2’ played them as a backing track.
Their label, Domino Recording Co Ltd, dropped the debut Fat Dog long-player ‘WOOF.’ on 6th September last year and the band played no less than two instore gigs that day here in Brighton at Resident records – Reviews HERE. Success had also arrived as the album reached No.16 in the Official UK Albums Chart. 2024 tour dates were secured, but to be honest, by then Fat Dog had well outgrown their selected venues. The Brighton date was put on by FORM promoters on 22nd November at a rammed Patterns not far from the pier (Review HERE), but it was obvious that larger venues were urgently required in order to cater for growing demand. Cue Fat Dog 2025 UK and Ireland tour dates! Fourteen venues were selected throughout the land and the opening night was last night in Norwich where the band premiered two brand new tunes as part of their set. The second night of the tour is here in Brighton at the Chalk venue, which not surprisingly was also organised by FORM and this too has sold out! So once again we are packed in like sardines with barely room to dance to the euphoric sounds of Fat Dog. As always we are as close to the front as possible, but it’s proving difficult to make notes on my phone due to the continual jostiling of the ever-increasing eager fans.
Their 55 minute 13 tune set that ran from 8:48pm to 9:43pm, commences with the intro tape blasting out ‘Who Let The Dogs Out’ by the Baha Men. The players arrive and take up their positions, to our left (stage right) there’s Chris Hughes on keyboards, synths, and guitar, next to him is Morgan Wallace on saxophone, centre stage is founding member Joe Love on vocals and guitar, behind him on the drum riser is local legend ELLiS·D on drums, far right (stage left) is Jacqui Wheeler on bass, and instead of Dylan on drums and percussion, we have an unknown violinist. The Fat Dog lineup does seem to be a fluid affair, so maybe Dylan has been replaced? But let’s face it, chaotic south London rabble Fat Dog are one of the most exciting breakthrough bands of the past few years.
“Woof, woof” we’re off! “It’s f*cking Fat Dog, baby; It was the light at the beginning of time; It was the light at the end of time…”, this can only mean that ‘Vigilante’ from their 2024 ‘WOOF.’ album is up first. This to me has an amalgam of a Jewish/Arabic vibe and my fave line of the track is the comical (or maybe sinister) “Granny tights on my head”. The crowd is bouncing along enthusiastically and clearly it’s going to be one of those nights!
Joe announces “How’s it going Brighton?” and the band unleash the unreleased ‘Boomtown’ which sees Chris vacate the stage and place himself in the centre of the crowd. Musically this tune reminds me of the fabulous German trio of Scooter. With the crowd adequately warmed up, Chris resumes his position on stage and the musicians give us another true banger, ‘All The Same’ from the ‘WOOF.’ album. The lyrics are certainly getting us going as Joe throws them out at us…“All my kids with your fingers on the trigger; I stay at home, should’ve used the f*cking slipper; I’m moving back, back in time; I’m going back to ’89; You’re all the same; To me; You’re all the same; To me”.
Next up is a truly epic, particularly long version of arguably their most well known song, their 2023 ‘King Of Slugs’ single which benefits from a repetitive banging Nitzer Ebb meets Jewish/Arabic/Russian/Ska beat, which then it slows down with almost a choral sound, and the lines are delivered slowly and the epic builds and builds and lets loose again in an almost surf rock meets rave style, it really is a masterpiece! Suffice to say that the tune receives the loudest cheers to date!
Joe then says “This is a new one for you” and ‘Call Me If You Want Brat Psy’ gets its second ever live airing, with the first being last night in Norwich. Joe comes off the stage and leans over the crowd barrier and sings into the crowd to whip up the vibe. This being the first of many of these close encounters. After a slower rather melodic beginning the tune headed into euphoric Scooter hardcore territory, and then back to the quieter melodic section again, and back to the heavy action. This newbie is epic and bodes well for the second Fat Dog album, whenever that’s going to be recorded! We next get a trio of tracks that are also as yet to be recorded, the first of which being ‘Ballad’, which brought the mood right down, but only momentarily, as this segues straight into another epic banger in the form of ‘Pray To That’, which is followed by ‘Bad Dog’ and sees Chris and another band member having a push-up competition whilst the song plays out.
‘Closer To God’ from the album is the next offering which commences “This is not a fire test; You may see me from the calling light; Oh, the sky is breaking; I ain’t even shaking; I was walking on the other side; I was walking on the tracks again”, and the standout line being “This is not a sound check”. This is a saxophone heavy song with a slower pace which true to Fat Dog form speeds up. Their melodic ‘Peace Song’ single from last year is up next. Chris switches from keys to guitar for this one and I can actually hear the violin for the first time tonight during this tune. The singalong earworm line of “And I’m in love with the world” is delivered and the crowd erupt further. This truly is another excellent piece of work!
They then launch into the Gabber-esque ‘Wither’ and Joe instructs the crowd to crouch down and pop up again. This is becoming a much used trick by many bands these days, but it always works. I first recall being asked to do this a number of years ago at The Great Escape when Confidence Man weren’t famous, and look how well they’ve done! Fat Dog’s penultimate offering was introduced by Joe, saying “This is a new one”, and so ‘F*ck Urself’ which was also receiving its second ever live outing this evening, was upon us. It has a really decent synth and drum intro with a chugging beat as in retro 80’s vibe. The new material is solid and the future looks bright for this exciting band. They sign off with ‘Running’ from the album and the lyrics get the crowd to fever pitch “I said wake me up, wake me up; When the shooting starts…” which is another uplifting cut and a good one to leave us on and wanting more. Fat Dog don’t do encores and so at 9:43pm that was our lot. It has been a total pleasure to watch these guys in action and I can’t wait for their new material to be released and then another tour! Maybe Brighton Dome beckons?
Fat Dog:
Joe Love – vocals, guitar
Chris Hughes – keyboards, synths, guitar
Morgan Wallace – saxophone, synth
Jacqui Wheeler – bass
ELLiS·D – drums
? – violin
Fat Dog setlist:
(Intro tape) ‘Who Let The Dogs Out’ (Baha Men song)
‘Vigilante’ (from 2024 ‘WOOF.’ album)
‘Boomtown’ (unreleased)
‘All The Same’ (from 2024 ‘WOOF.’ album)
‘King Of The Slugs’ (from 2024 ‘WOOF.’ album)
‘Call Me If You Want Brat Psy’ (second ever playing) (unreleased)
‘Ballad’ (unreleased)
‘Pray To That’ (unreleased)
‘Bad Dog’ (unreleased)
‘Closer To God’ (from 2024 ‘WOOF.’ album)
‘Peace Song’ (a 2024 single)
‘Wither’ (from 2024 ‘WOOF.’ album)
‘F*ck Urself’ (second ever playing) (unreleased)
‘Running’ (from 2024 ‘WOOF.’ album)
(Outro tape) ‘Take Me Home, Country Roads’ (John Denver song)
It’s fair to say that Fat Dog are endeavoring to give a number of acts the lift up that they might require for this 14-date tour and they have selected a half dozen acts to perform on certain nights of the tour. This evening we have Star City who were formerly known as Pyongyang, which is the capital of North Korea and a 2015 tune by Blur. They opened up the tour last night in Norwich and tonight is their final date. We have not had the chance to catch them live before so they are, to be honest, an unknown quantity.
According to the Chalk website the event was running from 6pm to 10pm and we had struggled to get the performance time for Star City, although thankfully we did know Fat Dog’s and we worked back from there in order to guess a time to arrive. If indeed the doors did swing open at 6pm, then those present would have had to have waited 105 minutes before Star City took to the stage, which couldn’t have been fun! As it was, we arrived 30 minutes early, but were lucky enough to secure good spots.
Star City took to the stage at 7:45pm and entertained the punters for the next 32 minutes until 8:17pm and in that time they played us a sample set consisting of seven compositions.
There were no introductions, the quartet comprising of South as well as East London based Harry McHale (vocals, guitar, saxophone), Otis Hurst (synths), Olly Meredith (bass) and Luke Brueck Seeley (drums), simply got down to it with a warmup intro tune referred to as ‘Intro’. We were able to gauge more what they were going to be like from their second number, ‘The Good Day’, which commenced with a dark keys intro followed by the drums and then the other musicians kicked in. Harry ditched his sax for a guitar and when he began singing the vocals, I was a tad surprised that he didn’t actually sound like I thought he was going to judging by his look. Vocally I could hear warblings not too far off Kirk Brandon (Spear Of Destiny/Theatre Of Hate/The Pack) and even quite possibly John Lydon (Sex Pistols/PiL). Otis was certainly getting the best out of his two synths as swirling sounds were the backbone of this jazz infused indie rocker, which, like Fat Dog material, is a mashup of styles.
‘Horseman’ was tune three and Otis made the keys sound not too dissimilar to Fischerspooner’s classic ‘Emerge’. Once the others joined in, the tune got all funky and then the keys switched to a frenetic ‘Popcorn’ (Gershon Kingsley tune made famous by Hot Butter) beat. I was grasping a Scissor Sisters vibe in here as well. The lads moved on with ‘Safehouse’ which was kicked off by Luke on drums, followed by Otis, and then Harry’s Brandon/Lydon (without a sneer) vocals kicked in. My ears certainly pricked up further with the arrival of ‘Fatherland’ which commenced with a Sigue Sigue Sputnik repetitive keys intro section. Harry’s vocal delivery was characteristically much slower than the beat, but then the booming beats kick in and suddenly we are in Prodigy territory, and back again. They were certainly skitting across styles here.
Their penultimate offering was ‘International Waters’ which began with an almost Human League style synth delivery and then things switched to overall sounding like a Happy Mondays tune, with even Harry’s vocal sounding not too far off Shaun Ryder. The track began to build until we were in acid house keys territory at its conclusion. After this, Harry finally addressed the crowd for the first time with a “Thank you” and went on to add “We’ve got one more song left, we have been Star City”. I’m guessing a number of punters were thankfully now aware of the name of the act that they had really been enjoying for the past half hour. Harry ditched his guitar in order to concentrate on his vocal delivery, and then the beat kicks and then this does actually sound as though it could be a Fat Dog song. The sax then makes an appearance to finish off the track. Star City were rewarded with an enthusiastic applause from the crowd and it was clear that they had gone down very well indeed. Let’s hope that they make a swift return to Brighton, so that we can have a full set of material from this decent act, that should go far!
Star City:
Otis Hurst – synths
Harry McHale – vocals, guitar, saxophone
Olly Meredith – bass
Luke Brueck Seeley – drums
Setlist:
‘Intro’
‘The Good Day’
‘Horseman’
‘Safehouse’
‘Fatherland’
‘International Waters’
‘Sounds like Violence’
Check out Star City live HERE.
