It’s wet outside, and the mood has been dampened by an atrocious performance from Wales in the rugby today. Yet, upstairs at Clwb Ifor Bach there’s a storm brewing. Off the back of their debut album Woof, released in September, Fat Dog are in town. Entering the stage as a countdown sounds (“30 seconds… 10 seconds… five seconds…”), the London group are here to tear the room apart. There’s even some Welsh scarves onstage, passed between singer Joe Love, keyboardist Chris Hughes and saxophonist Morgan Wallace.
Vigilante opens the set, and immediately it’s just a big ol’ dance party in the room. This is helped further by Hughes entering the crowd during second song Boomtown and crab dancing with the crowd around him. The tunes come thick and fast tonight with All The Same and King Of The Slugs being unleashed into the room with terminal velocity. “Now… we wither” Love says, by way of introducing Wither, and it’s properly mental. Hughes and Wallace dance behind Love until they’re needed, and it’s a performance that needs to be seen to be believed.
I Am The King sees Love pace from the stage to the back of the room, or at least as far as his mic cable will take him, before he settles in the middle of the crowd for the first part of the song. Considering the band only have one album, it’s not a surprise there’s some new songs this evening, either – including the really very good Bad Dog and the soon-to be-released (in “four days”, apparently) Peace Song, which is as silky as Fat Dog can get without becoming a parody.
Before finishing the main set with Running, Love shouts out “the refreshing taste of Brecon Carreg” and, for the second time this evening, encourages the crowd to get down to the ground for some mad mad fun. Encore-wise, there’s a cover of Benny Benassi’s Satisfaction before another new song plays us out in the form of Skibidi (yes, it’s really called that). It’s a proper banger with pounding percussion throughout: more nonsense like this, please.
Fat Dog, Clwb Ifor Bach, Cardiff, Sun 17 Nov
words JOSHUA WILLIAMS photos SION TEIFI REES
