FAT WHITE FAMILY / WORKING MEN’S CLUB | LIVE REVIEW
Tramshed, Cardiff, Wed 27 Nov
Bouncers eye us up hungrily as we shuffle to the front for Cardiff’s first headline gig from provocative art-rock outlaws Fat White Family – a band who have described themselves as “a drug band with a rock problem.” A pig’s head glares at us from the belly of the kick drum, and the speakers are branded with the abbreviated FWF (which has quite a different meaning in Welsh slang).
Scowling support act Working Men’s Club have been (rather grandiosely) compared to Soft Cell and Suicide. There are certainly early postpunk influences in the music, plus a healthy dose of Krautrock – but onstage, they’re a bit like a gang of sulky adolescents who can’t wait to go home. Frontman Sydney Minsky-Sargeant takes a leaf out of the Fat Whites’ book, as he prowls topless through the crowd, menacingly chewing on his silver neckchain. Synth-driven single Teeth emerges as the strongest of the set, and it’s clear there’s potential here if they learnt to take themselves less seriously.
“We are Fat White Family,” greets guitarist Saul Adamczewski – a musical maverick, who’s had his grimy fingers in the pies of Warmduscher and Insecure Men, among others. With his trademark gap-toothed grin, he adds: “You are Fat Welsh People.” They’re barely halfway through their opener Auto Neutron before frontman Lias Saoudi is over the barriers whipping the crowd into a frenzy. This crazed atmosphere is somehow maintained for most of the gig, with a seemingly endless procession of crowd surfers, particularly during I Am Mark E. Smith and Touch The Leather (which Saul calls “a song about giving a massage to Paul Weller”). The disco-inflected tracks off their latest album Serfs Up! – one of the most accomplished and original LPs of 2019 – have me dancing like Peep Show’s Mark Corrigan at a Rainbow Rhythms class.
The only jarring moment of the evening comes when Saul is left alone onstage to sing Goodbye Goebbels, and it all goes a bit Noel Gallagher for five minutes. Later, as each member rejoins him one-by-one, it’s hard to judge if this is plainly self-indulgent or an ironic, tongue-in-cheek display of the band’s acrimonious break-up and subsequent rebirth. Judging from their smirks (and the fact that the song is a sentimental country ballad written from the viewpoint of Hitler), I think it’s the latter.
The catharsis and adrenaline rush of a Fats gig is undeniable and lingers over us all as we stagger out into the street, thoroughly purged of the midweek malaise.
words SAM PRYCE photos EMMA LEWIS