ELECTROWERKS
25TH FEBRUARY 2014
Buzz bands come and go. Most never live up to the hype, a few implode before they can achieve their almost-destined status, some turn out to be a fabrication of a good press team. Very occasionally there is one that is so unhinging yet bizarrely brilliant there is a genuine fear that all of the above might occur.
The Fat White Family are the sort of thing your mother warned you about. They are the band parental groups will claim to be ‘unholy’ and ‘leading young minds astray’ and that is exactly why you should like them. Tonight’s Islington Electroworkz show is the final night on their ‘Tour Of Struggle’ and one of NME’s award show series, it is sold out and tickets are now like gold dust. The band are introduced on stage by an older gentlemen with Fat Whites t-shirt wrapped around his head. He’s slurring into the mic and encouraging the audience to buy merchandise to fund the bands upcoming tour of America. He looks dirty and unkept and it’s not really clear if has meant to be there or not until finally a few minutes after his rambling started the band appear on stage and he embraces singer Lias Saoudi for an awkwardly long cuddle. “Pat Lyons everybody…..” remarks toothless guitarist Saul Adamczewski and then it begins…
What is to follow is around 45 minutes of crowd surfing, screaming, sweat, male nudity and stage invasions. There is a constant sense of danger in the air as Saoudi throws himself around the venue and into the audience clinging from the ceiling, somehow managing to keep his unfeasibly low trousers on throughout (although there is a few unavoidable flashes of his John Thomas for good measure). Alongside the visual onslaught there are some real killer tunes to boot ‘Cream Of The Young’ and ‘Wet Hot Beef’ shine alongside new single ‘Touch The Leather’ with its not suitable for work video. The climax of the set involves most of the audience on stage, instruments passed to roadies to play while the band climb the walls and drinks flying in a raucous finale.
Fat White Family are rightfully so your new favourite band. Coming across like Iggy & The Stooges meets The Brian Jonestown Massacre you should catch them quick, something this good yet unstable can’t last forever, can it?