Fat Dog live at Scala, London and the Boileroom, Guildford

On the 3rd of October, Fat Dog headlined at the Scala in support of their recent single, King Of The Slugs, with two brilliant openers bringing forward an unpredictable night of chaos and laughter.

Getdown Services

The first band to come onstage were Getdown Services, an electronic duo who only used live instruments a total of three times (a synth once, and an electric guitar twice). They warmed up the crowd very well and easily took the crown as the funniest band I've seen live, which judging by the audible giggles within the crowd, I think many others would agree. As it happens with most duos, their sound got a bit stale after time. However, the mix of sudden screams and landlord diss tracks spliced with their stage presence, which is best described as Horrible Histories taking on American gym teachers, makes them entertaining enough to never really get bored.

WOOZE

In stark contrast to Getdown Services, WOOZE came on looking far more stylish, with each member wearing a yellow balaclava except frontman Theo Spark, who came onstage with yellow boots, camo print trousers and a vibrant green mullet. A few seconds later they began their Sparks infused art pop, which quickly had all the audience bouncing along; before the end of the first track, Theo had already crowd-surfed. The rest of their set was filled with other quirky antics from all members, such as the guitarist playing above his head or the bassist consistently pointing his instrument at members of the audience, but the pinnacle was Theo playing his guitar with his mouth while in an elbow-stand. Their distorted riffs also always hit the sweet spot between aggressiveness and zestfulness, but also had the necessary variation to keep every song riveting. WOOZE as a whole seem like a band who can as easily open for an artist as well as hold a headline all to themselves.

Fat Dog at the Scala

Starting their set with a long two minute pre-recorded intro, Fat Dog quickly grabbed everybody's attention as they allowed the expectations of the audience to start boiling in anticipation. The drummer, wearing a dog mask that stayed on for the entire concert, was the first to come onstage, closely followed by the rest of the band. Fat Dog like to embrace the much more techno aspects of music, while staying true to their windmill roots, and it's a mix that works wonders. Adding to this, they often love to add a fat dollop of distortion to all their tracks, so once everything is put together and the amps are cranked up, they become loud enough to vibrate the fence, mostly due to the sheer strength of their low end. However, Fat Dog are also an unpredictable band live, always coming out with something the audience would never have foreseen. At one point two of the band members running up and down the stage and fighting, before both agreeing they should just join the public for a while. During The Land Before Time, all of the band members would suddenly leave the stage, as one walks back in now fully dressed in black robes and begins to chant for about two minutes.

I was lucky enough to catch them at the Boileroom a couple weeks after their Scala show. Due to being on the same tour, the setlist was pretty much identical between Boileroom and Scala. However, there were a few key differences, starting with the change of venue: Scala is 1,100 while Boileroom is 275 capacity. This led to the show at the Boileroom being a lot more intimate, with everybody getting to see Joe, the lead vocalist, up close.

One thing that is prominent with Fat Dog is that they love to get up close to the crowd, with Joe often walking into the middle of it and getting everybody to crouch down forming a ring around him, sometimes even making sure the people tucked away in the corners would still participate. At the same time they also showed how they always let things happen spontaneously at individual shows, for example at the Boileroom during their rendition of I Am The King, one of their best songs, Joe placed his cowboy hat onto a member of the audience and handed them the microphone for them to continue screaming the chant of "I Am The King". Another big difference between Boileroom and Scala is the volume of the entire concert, Boileroom was drastically quieter than Scala, which while making it interesting to hear the songs in a different way, doesn't have the same pandemonium that makes them so compelling.

In a nutshell, Fat Dog's unique blend of genres and riveting live performances cause them to be a very memorable band, with a lot of potential. A lot of their unreleased material is all to the standard of King Of The Slugs, if not better. They have also shown that they're able to put on a great show regardless of venue size and the limitations that come with it.