New Zealand seven-piece Fat Freddy's Drop are renowned for their live energy and eclectic style. When they made a visit to Rock City recently, who better to send down to see them than super-fan LeftLion staffer Adam Pickering. He had no regrets...
Let’s avoid any pretension to objectivity — Fat Freddy’s Drop are in contention for being my favourite band of all time. Although it has been a while since I listened to them regularly, I think that’s probably going to change now I’ve finally caught them live and realise how many
release have gone under my radar in recent years. I missed seeing them 10 years ago, as Fat Freddy’s (or FFD for short) were unable to reach the Soundwave Croatia festival where I hoped to catch them headlining. I was gutted not to see them then, and opportunities have escaped me since. Not for a lack of the New Zealanders regularly touring these shores, though: they tour Europe often, a festival fixture, and I just need to get to more gigs and festivals. As a recovering promoter and music biz man, this guy on the wrong side of 35 spends more time in the garden nowadays. Well, lesson learned…
Because wow, what a gig this was. A completely soul-nourishing experience, I’m still buzzing 48 hours later. Go to more gigs, dear reader, because I’m sure there’s one going that’ll do the same for you. I’m also here on my first-ever LeftLion music review brief, my first-ever music review in fact. So, bias admitted, let’s crack on with the show and try to make a critique of this.
On DJ duties for the warm up is MC Slave aka Mark Williams, who’s already getting into it with classics and hyping the crowd, singing along to the likes of No No No (You Don’t Love Me). If his demeanour and attendee-pleasing selection is any indication of how much fun we’re going to have tonight, we’re going to have a lot of fun.
Things couldn’t have started more auspiciously for FFD, with opener Slings & Arrows from 2015 album BAYS. Soaring straight in with the Egyptian-twinged synth sounds and stomping reggae rhythms that are more generous than many of there tracks in getting the beat in
early, it holds up as a classic in the genre-hopping FFD’s Dub department. “One in the chamber, Two ready to go, She quick on the trigger, and that's why I love her so” repeats the chorus, setting the tone and intent.
Cay’s Crays is the first real crowd pleaser for this early days “Fred Head” as they dub their fans, as one of my several favourites from the FFD oeuvre, from 2005’s Based on a True Story. It’s one of the more sparse, dubbed out, slow builders, hanging on the spacious, easy flow of the music and the moodily entrancing and slightly esoteric lyrics, and what is a truly transporting low-key vocal delivery by lead singer Joe Dukie. It does something magic. “The skank be the rock in my life,” Dukie repeats, and right now that couldn’t be more true for me. I’m leaning all the way in, letting it hold all the grief and stress I’m carrying, skanking it out in a sea of beautiful people.
Next up is Blackbird, from 2013’s album of the same name. I was into this album when it came out, falling neatly before I last hoped, and failed, to see them. It’s another Dub/Soul special, and sees what’s probably FFD’s standout piano melody set the slightly pirate-y, seafaring tone that’s such a strong atmospheric note of the band’s general sonic landscape. It’s a beautiful track. We're really getting going now.
Showing off their continued consistency and willingness to soak up new sounds, the next track is Raleigh Twenty from 2019’s Special Edition, which I’ll admit is brand new to me. It’s satisfyingly different, with slap bass and synthesisers driving more of a Funk-inspired beat. The three-piece horn section are having fun with this one. But nobody, absolutely nobody, in the venue is having as much fun as a perennially wriggling, sweatband-wearing Tony Chang aka Toby Laing on trumpet, who features heavily on backing vocals here. He’ll be down to vest and boxers later, getting stuck into the crowd whilst brandishing a massive tuba.
Special Edition, title track of the aforementioned album, is up next and this is when MC Slave gets another chance to shine, with plenty of call-and-response with the crowd. It’s a great mid-set shift of energy.
And now we’re back to another me-pleaser, with another Based on a True Story favourite of mine, Roady. “Oh it feels so good, when I know you’re skanking with me,” sings Dukie — yes, yes it does.
Fat Freddy’s do have a habit, now that I actually look at the lyrics (I’ve always been a vibes over lyrics guy), of seemingly being self-descriptive of the music they’re making at a time. Most of it makes you feel good in one way or another, and the lyrics are generally an introspective to the tune itself, boldly literal with it. It’s so nicely delivered that this maybe shallow approach to songwriting has an emphasising effect on the music rather than being annoying...
“We do it for the love of music,” Roady repeats, “fire” dubbed out in the background. It’s full and love and pure fire. It’s like they’re urging themselves on towards the peak vibe, and that’s what they achieve. This slice of Reggae-Funk makes me feel suddenly a lot less like I’m missing out on all of August’s summer festival action this year. Itch scratched.
Six-Eight is next, another wonky low-tech digital inflected instrumental from 2019, which I can’t quite put a genre on. I like it though, and I appreciate that they’re not letting the old timers get too comfortable. There’s been a balance here between crowd-pleasing and keeping themselves fresh, and it works. Razor takes us back to BAYS, and it’s the first indication of another sound they do so well: deep, dubbed out Techno. Yes, really. This is the first time I get really excited that they might play my all-time FFD anthem, and one of the tracks I’ve most played out as DJ ... But it’s not to be, yet. The track, with its lyrics “smoke across the sky (x2), oh there's a fire, somewhere in the city,” delivers similar tension and build, but they’re not going to let us release it all just yet.
Cortina Motors is the next to offer the same excitement for me, having a similar rhythm to it, but it’s another relatively newer one from the same album. It has a rockier, breaker crescendo to it, it gives me Playstation 1 era sci-fi computer game feels. It’s all a big set up though, the tension builds… but the more they lean in, the more confident I grow Shiverman will make an appearance.
Fat Freddy’s pretend to leave us with Shady, one of their most recent efforts but one that isn’t entirely new to me. It’s a warm Afro-House number. Throughout all the genre-hopping, Dukie’s voice and the rhythmic and melodic partnership that has been sounding so new, distinctive and uplifting for 25 years. The brass section, DJ, lead guitarist, pianist and percussionist all deserve a mention. This is clearly a unit, a family. I think this is where the semi-dressed man with the big tuba came in, but I’m having so much fun and becoming slightly dehydrated from the fluid ounces of sweat I’m losing... It’s all a little hazy.
But of course that wasn’t it…
After much noise, the inevitable crowd demand for encore rose and was obliged. It turns out all Roadys, Motors, and Raleighs did, thank god, lead to Shiverman. The perfect finale (post encore, which is – controversial opinion alert – all the better if you ask me) was ecstatic, and clearly not just for me… It was the release of what for these absolute masters of atmospheric architecture, tension building, was a journey the whole set was always meant to end in. The Balkan-Folk-ish horns that themselves take 7.5 minutes to finally, orgasmically, drop to turn this already high quality Techno/Soul track into something truly moving and an absolute classic. It’s an incredible fusion. The result was a pogoing, beaming, collectively releasing Rock City full of grinning, chanting, and very satisfied loons.
Complaints? Well it’s the first two albums that were really in my ears when I needed to hear them most, I haven’t been back so much in recent years, so I personally wanted to hear a bunch more familiar ones. Tracks like Based on a True Story-opener Ernie or the sun-drenched burnout melancholy of Boondigga or the optimism of Breakthrough from Dr. Boondigga and the Big BW (which also features Shiverman), have a place deep in my soul, having helped me navigate hard times and mental health battles, and that’s why I’m wrought with shivers and I shed a quiet tear listening back to them as I revisit them while writing this review.
So that is just to say, I wish it could have gone on longer and fitted in more tracks, because, across every album era the band has sympathetically guided us through this evening, one thing Fat Freddy’s never drop is the ball. Each effort is packed with quality and soul, delivered with joy and gratitude, throughout their continued evolution and experimentation. I would have happily watched them play all day, going through each and every careful creation. That they have to be selective across such a broad back catalogue, and that the newer tracks they showcased were equally quality, is testament to a seemingly tireless quality and commitment to their fans. I’m glad they didn’t cram crowd pleasers in, mash them into naff megamixes or rush it; instead, they gave the tracks all the love, patience and space they always have.
I’ll just have to see them a few more times and trust they’ll change it up, like they always do. I’m pretty sure, with this much soul still to give, they won’t be going away any time soon.
A full fat experience that’s going to nourish me for a long time.
Fat Freddy's Drop performed at Rock City on 15th August 2024.
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