Taya Llewellyn
March 18, 2025| Harry Shiels |LIVE REVIEW
Live Review: Fat Dog and CHILD | XOYO, Birmingham | 21/02/2025
Gaining a reputation as being one of the “wildest live bands on the circuit”, developing unfathomable fandom before launching their unique and indefinable debut album WOOF, one question stands out among the rest; are Fat Dog able to deliver on the hype or does this pup need to be put down?
CHILD
For this latest run, Fat Dog chose to have a series of fresh-faced underground supports from the indie and punk world, with tonight’s opening act being CHILD. It’s hard to find a lot of information about this five-piece, as they still seem pretty new to the live world, having a handful of dates sprinkled across the last twelve months. The band’s sound weaves between angular post-punk/noise-punk energy of earlier IDLES or Gilla Band and some restrained alt-rock/alt-indie vibes for quieter passages, evoking the teetering emotional frailty of Radiohead or the more experimental side of Bright Eyes. There are strange rhythmic and tempo fluctuations that make for some fascinating songs through the band’s short thirty-minute set, not quite what you’d expect before the high-octane electro punk of tonight’s headliner, but still the band have an interesting sound.
Unfortunately, though, there were a few obstacles in the road. One guitarist is having amp troubles intermittently, clearly frustrating the poor lad and takes away from the flow somewhat. There is a bit of nervous energy about them that was melting away somewhat in the set’s final moments, but despite any setbacks, they have promise and will be worth checking out when they release their first songs.
Photo Credit: Taya Llewellyn
CHILD
Fat Dog
It’s been a wild eighteen months for south-east London oddities Fat Dog. Having formed in 2020 and cutting their teeth with a wealth “wild” of live shows in London, the band have been riding a wave starting with their debut single in 2023. Since they’ve been building manic levels of hype, being picked up and championed by Radio 6 through to launch of their debut album WOOF and a massive UK tour at the end of last year. The band quickly announced another run a few months following and here we are in XOYO Birmingham tonight, their second sold out headline show in the West Midlands. When the lights finally dim, the stage becomes clouded in haze and fog, a simple “WOOF” emblazons the LED screen at the back of the stage. An extended section of Pavarotti’s iconic performance of the classical opera finale ‘Nessun Dorma’ plays out, the seven piece appears through the fog as the opera reaches its climax.
The first line of album opener ‘Vigilante’ is screamed back at the stage by the excited audience, “IT’S FUCKING FAT DOG BAYBAY”, falling into the slow build of the track, the pits already stirring and emphatically breaking out once the instrumental kicks in and rolls on. After prepping the sequencing for unreleased ‘Boomtown’, synth controller Chris Hughes jumps from the stage into the pit to try and stir up chaos, little help is really needed as the sellout mass are already going ballistic. He’s there for all 20 seconds before dipping out through the audience to join his bandmates back on stage. It’s all a blur of bodies moving on the floor as they excitedly scream along to ‘All the Same’ and massive debut single ‘King of the Slugs’. The stage is overwhelmed with gear for Fat Dog. Between them they have lead vocalist, mastermind and occasional guitarist Joe Love, aforementioned synth lord Chris Hughes, a dedicated guitarist, violinist, sax, bass, percussion AND drums. There is a lot happening on stage with additional instrument swapping and all, but for the most part everyone gets their chance to shine throughout the set.
Playing through most of their debut record, only missing ‘i am the king’ as well as ‘and so it came to pass’, WOOF is only a half an hour-long experience. The rest of the set is packed with unreleased material and ‘Peace Song’, a single from the tail end of 2024. Unreleased cuts like ‘Call Me if you Want Brat Psy’, ‘Fuck Urself’ and ‘Bad Dog’ seem to go down great with their rabid fan base, sounding just as slick as the WOOF material and continue the band’s odyssey into genre fusions. It doesn’t come close to their fan’s reaction to album cuts such as ‘Clowns’, ‘Closer to God’ and ‘Wither’, at times damn near engulfing the entire floor and putting the venue’s security team (and maybe even the band themselves) on edge from the chaos unfolding.
Whilst the audience are admittedly losing their minds like their lives depended on it for the band’s fifty-minute set, the members on stage are a bit of a different story. Guitarist Love lackadaisically plants himself in one of three places at any point in the set, either on stage, on an obtrusive flight case in the photo pit, or standing on the pit barrier in front of the frenetic throng, awkwardly stood like a cult leader barely in control of their subjects. The instrumentalists are nailing their parts, but clearly seem a bit nervous and almost glued in place, not playing to the audience much. By the time their massive hit ‘Running’ drains the last of the energy from the audience, Love seems fully involved in letting them sing lines from the mic, giving high-fives and genuinely interacting, which he was avoiding earlier. It is hard to put into words, but something just didn’t add up. The vast accounts of Fat Dog live paint a picture of an unrestrained beast, a breath of fresh air in the UK music scene for their untouchable live performances, but that just wasn’t there.
From a purely objective standpoint it was a fine show; the sound is solid, the lightning is done well with strobes and using the interesting rigs XOYO has, and the crowd are in a state of unrest teetering on the edge of a cliff for the entire set. The band is doing an admirable job at replicating the songs live, but there feels like there was a disconnect between the energy from the band and their crowd. At the end of the day, the question really comes down to: What makes a good show? The answer to that is (obviously) subjective. It very well may be ticking the box as mind-blowing live shows for the mainstream audience the band are gathering who don’t typically dip into these spaces, but from anyone well versed in the punk and alternative scene could tell you, the show was just fine, if slightly underwhelming.
Perhaps it’s an age and experience thing, despite supposedly having a plethora of gigs under their belt in London from late 2020 onwards it didn’t feel like Fat Dog are these masters in complete control of their audience and environment, bouncing off the walls and leaving you on edge that the building could collapse at any moment from the ferocity of the performance. Whilst there could definitely be a brightness in the band’s future, tonight did not deliver on the promised hype of “one of the best live acts on the gig circuit”.
Photo Credit: Taya Llewellyn
