We love the Coronet in Elephant and Castle and we really love the Fat White Family. Tonight felt like a truly momentous occasion. We’ve been following the Fat Whites with eager anticipation and awe for the entirety of our magazine’s three-year lifespan. Tonight that journey came to a head with one of the best live shows I’ve ever seen. Having seen them live around ten times in the last couple of years, something about this show was special, a tribute to London. With gentrification and the loss of great London venues like The Queens Head in Brixton a hot topic with the band, the Coronet was the perfect location for this show, a fittingly bigger venue for the band to headline but with its roots in the old, lost London.
In true Fat Whites style, Lias Saoudi came onto the stage dressed like a shamed BBC presenter in a shirtless white suit which was quickly abandoned. The front man was on top form and his communal, energetic, spasmic movements weren’t lost on the larger crowd proving that the band works equally as well in a sweaty pub and in as large a venue as they can fill.
The show consisted of a beautifully entwined set combining tracks from their shambolic debut, ‘Champagne Holocaust’ and the recent, cinematic, ‘Songs for our Mothers’. Throwing in the huge in-between singles, ‘Touch the Leather’ and ‘I am Mark E Smith’ for good measure. With the set slowly winding up to crowd explosions.
As always with the Fat Whites, it felt like everything could fall apart at anytime, it also felt like the old Coronet could collapse on us all at a moments notice. What a way to go…
The Fat Whites played;
Tinfoil Deathstar
Auto Neutron
Whitest Boy on the Beach
Bomb Disneyland
Is It Raining In Your Mouth?
I Am Mark E. Smith
Cream of the Young
Satisfied
Goodbye Goebbels
Touch the Leather
Wild American Prairie
Garden of the Numb
Heaven on Earth
We speak to Lias of the Fat White Family in Issue Nine. You can read it for FREE online or pick up a copy here.