Cobbled together from string and poster paint at Greenbelt 1985, legendary pop idiots Fat and Frantic were a seven-year fever-dream, moving incomprehensibly and uncomprehendingly from Fringe Bandstand to Mainstage before spontaneously combusting once and for all at the 1992 festival.
Between Greenbelt summers, incendiary live performances everywhere from King Tut’s Wah Wah Hut to Billericay Methodist Church were accompanied by a trail of records, TV and radio appearances and the fleeting impression of a band going somewhere.
‘Somewhere’ turned out to be careers in carpentry, choral conducting, church leadership and academia, the band re-emerging once a decade or so, like burrowing cicadas, to see if they could remember the nonsensical words to their ridiculous songs.
Less clever than Harry and Chris, less funny than Folk On, less musically accomplished than Eden Burning, and older than all of them, Fat and Frantic exist for the sheer joy of it, whatever ‘it’ is: breakfast, hoovers, trains, justice, phone boxes, love.
Come and see. We’re happy to be here.