FATBOY SLIM | LIVE REVIEW
Motorpoint Arena Cardiff, Sat 23 Feb
A Fatboy Slim gig after that Six Nations result was hardly going to be a downbeat affair, and so it duly proved. With a rotating, circular stage set in the middle of the Motorpoint (the usual stage area was entirely left empty), with plentiful pyrotechnics and confetti cannons, it was always going to be likely that Norman Cook was going to lift the mood up whatever the case. All the same, a few shoutouts to the Welsh rugby win on the display screens were greeted with huge cheers.
Despite the sold-out status of the gig, the Motorpoint didn’t feel anywhere near full. That may have been a result of the seated areas to the side having been cleared away to add to a larger dancefloor, or it might have been a result of the preposterously large drink queues, but no matter if it meant more space to dance in. Which is just as well, as more than one fellow decided to grope my partner the one time we split to visit toilets. Britons, you need to sort yourselves out – you lot are so sexually repressed and sexually cretinous it is a miracle you have managed to reproduce for hundreds of years.
Support acts Horse Meat Disco and Cousn mostly warmed things up and got in and out without much fuss, leaving it wide open for Fatboy Slim. Against his big contemporaries of the 90s, The Prodigy and The Chemical Brothers, Norman Cook is probably the most accessible and obviously mainstream of the lot. Whilst all three have excellent live shows, it’s clear that Cook is the one most eager to please – effusively singing along to his own hits and geeing up the crowd as if he hasn’t been playing most of this setlist for the best part of 20 years – with pretty much all of the big hits appearing, some teased throughout with a split-second phrase dropped in.
I’m not going to insult your intelligence by listing the setlist: you probably have a good idea of what tracks he went with. If he’s mixing this live, it sure is remarkably impressive. But then again, dance music has never been about how impressive something is, but about how much fun you can with have a group of drunk strangers. And this show certainly delivers. By the end, the sprightly 55-year-old is red-faced and drenched in sweat, as are a significant section of the audience.
words FEDOR TOT photos TIM ALBAN
