Write-Up and Photos by Erin Christie
If you attended this year’s SXSW and escaped without hearing so much as an enthused whisper about British genre-shaping conglomerate and perhaps the buzziest band of 2024 Fat Dog, were you really even there? Unfortunately, I didn’t have the honor of witnessing the madness that is Fat Dog until they very recently returned to New York on their headlining tour, and thank god (or dog) I did.
At a frothing TV Eye in Queens at around 10 PM on a Tuesday, the members of Fat Dog sauntered on stage with a “perplexing vibe,” as one of my friends described. Donning a tarnished but still stark white karate kit and bright blue trainers, frontman Joe Love surveyed the eagerly anticipating crowd of onlookers with a squinted eye and furrowed brow before he and the rest of the band launched into their debut LP WOOF.’s opening track “Vigilante.” While the live version of the track did not include the recorded ideation’s pulpit-bound speech at the command of a doomsaying cult leader, it still perfectly introduced the snarling, propulsive, and utterly singular sound cultivated by the group in their short but action-packed career thus far, forcing the room into a swell of chaos in just under 2 minutes. Later setlist inclusions such as singles “Running” and “Wither” emitted a level of euphoric chaos that Ripley’s Believe It Or Not might’ve been interested in; it was truly one of the most joy-inducing sets I’ve seen in a long time, even if it blew by faster than you can spit out “It’s fucking fat dog baby” (much to my dismay).
Before the show, I accidentally stumbled into the members of Fat Dog as they enjoyed a pre-show drink at a bar down the street. While on stage no more than 30 minutes later, Love bravely admitted that he had had “far too many hard seltzers,” as he cracked open another Estrella and shared it with an audience member in the front row. Shortly after, keyboard player Chris Hughes stretched and began an impressive set of pushups as Love snaked his microphone cord through the crowd, beckoning the masses to come in close and get down low while launching like a bat out of hell into a to-be-released track. Whatever the band wanted, their wish was our command that night.
In truth, Fat Dog is a rather polarizing band, which I must make a point to mention in spite of the unabashed praise I’ve expressed in this live recap. Early singles “All The Same” and “King Of The Slugs” (debuted on their label Domino) helped the band’s message spread like wildfire at the top of this year due to their undeniably interesting musicality, blending elements of European dance music, UK drum-and-bass, industrial punk, and more into a melting pot of sheer insanity. To some, they’ve created the best thing since sliced bread, and to others, they’re truly confusing — either way, it makes for a raucous good time, right? To me, they’ve managed to foster a debut composed of some of the most compelling and spine-tingling music I’ve heard in a longggg time, and it feels like an honor to catch them this early in their career. After my debut Fat Dog live experience, I can safely say that I love them even more, and feel even more compelled to join their pack of wild dogs gnashing their teeth at the moon.
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