Fatboy Slim | Meg Ward
The Piece Hall, Halifax
24th August 2024
After a summer of shows covering all genres, the final Saturday of the Piece Hall’s 2024 gig season was primed for a right old rave-up with national treasure Fatboy Slim at the helm.
Despite having had car trouble on the way to the venue, Pontefract’s Meg Ward made it in time to warm the crowd up with a set of house, techno and garage which really got the assembled audience going – with the surrounding bars and restaurants sorting out the rest of the audience’s warm up.
A late influx of fans into the venue quickly filled the iconic courtyard up as legendary DJ Norman Cook a.k.a Fatboy Slim himself took to the stage.
40 years into his musical career he has likely played in many beautiful and unique venues, and it may not be his first time at this one, as in a pre-gig interview with Piece Hall patron Chris Hawkins he seemed to think he’d played here with The Housemartins many decades ago.
With a taster of Queen to get things going the phat beats came one after another in a set that mixed as much funk as it did soul. To look at, Norman Cook seems an average, pleasant guy, but stick a set of decks and a crowd in front of him and he’s an absolute menace to old hips and dodgy knees, and a night dancing on the concrete courtyard would no doubt cause some aches and pains the following day.
Although he is obviously the focal point on the stage, like the Underworld show earlier in the summer it was more about what was happening within the audience, with groups of old friends, and pockets of strangers all losing their minds and flailing their limbs in the air collectively to make a huge swathe of bouncing souls, that in time with the beats did their best to test the foundations of the Piece Hall, with Fatboy Slim acting as a conduit to the festivities.
The giant screen behind him displayed the iconic smiley faces and plenty of pop culture images, with some impressive AI clips featuring the likes of The Dude from Big Lebowski, Scarface, Barberella and more singing along with the lyrics of the songs. All that, combined with the light and laser show, was almost overwhelming at times, but enough to keep the interest peaked.
By the time he spun Star 69 everyone in the place had lost their inhibitions and the swell of energy in the crowd was infectious and Eat, Sleep, Rave, Repeat turned everything up to 11. A version of Praise You that was stretched out with 3 or 4 different tempo changes and Right Here, Right Now heavily mixed with the Stone’s Satisfaction raised the metaphorical roof as he brought the curtain down on the party of the summer, with old friendships renewed and new friendships made through the shared experience.
There have been many, many musical highlights in Halifax this summer, this was most certainly up there with the best of them.
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You can find Fatboy Slim at his Website | Facebook | X | Instagram
Words and photos by Frank Ralph, you can find Frank at his website | Instagram| Facebook
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