FAT DOG & STAR CITY
Who let the Fat Dog out? Whoever it was, thank you.
UEA)
It’s just over nine months since Fat Dog blew the roof off NAC. In that time, they’ve released the critically well received debut album Woof, played around the world, been booked to play the Waterfront and been upgraded to the LCR due to “overwhelming demand” for tickets.
Arriving before doors opened, the queue is hardly huge and it seems that the upgrade may have been a touch optimistic... The venue is filling up nicely by the time that STAR CITY - formerly known as Pyongyang - hit the stage. The four piece come from the same Brixton Windmill scene as the headliners. Featuring a sax and guitar playing singer, keys, bass and drums p, it is fair to say that their sound isn’t too far removed from Fat Dog’s either. That said, at their best they bring to mind a Krautrocking Comet Is Coming colliding with Warmduscher. A friend mentions Hawkwind, which I don’t see, but I’m hearing hints of the rockier side of 80s synthpop - think Simple Minds, Talk Talk circa It’s My a Life and even Duran Duran. Add in some choppy, funky, almost Niles Rodgersesque guitar and Star City have a sound of their own that gets a warm response. Just a shame that another name change is almost certainly on the cards given how many other Star Cities their are out there,,,,
By the time that the intro tape of Who Let The Dogs Out is blaring out, the LCR is heaving and there are the makings of a circle pit before FAT DOG blast into Vigilante. As with the show at NAC, the sound mixes punk, rock, rave and mutant klezmer. Johnny Hutch may have lost the dog’s head but he and newest (full) member Jacqui Wheeler make a formidable rhythm section. With all the reverb and echo on the vox, it is difficult to say whether Joe Love is a decent singer but he is a decent frontman and guitarist. Chris Hughes’ keys and guitar fill out the sound whilst the sax and keys of Morgan Wallace are the icing on the cake. If I am being hypercritical, the ascent to the bigger stages may have come a bit too quickly. There’s some awkward gaps between songs and, at times, the band don’t look entirely comfortable with all the space. That said, they are still thoroughly entertaining, particularly when Hughes and Wallace go all Confidence Man with the dance moves.
Whether Fat Dog can keep the momentum up or even stay at this level remains to be seen but, right here, right now, the crowd - ranging from 14 year olds with their parents up to pensioners - are well up for it from the get-go. There’s multiple mass singalongs, circle pits and even, from my vantage point, a wall of death. It may not be the most enthusiastic, energetic crowd I have seen here but it comes pretty close.
