At 51 years old I have seen my share of things. But seeing The Fat White Family live last weekend I was introduced to yet a new experience.
When the show began two of the band members were shirtless. After the first song another took his short off. During the second song the lead singer, Lias Soudi, began playing with his junk in a rather aggressive manner.
At the end of that song his pants came off. Following another song with his hand down his underwear, the offending garment came off and he was naked for all the world to see.
And he remained that way for the rest of the set. And his penis was a prop. It was his version of Roger Daltry spinning the microphone, except it was a penis.
And the thing of it is, it was a negative distraction. I was loving the show. Their music is dark and unpleasant but I was mesmerized and in the groove, and the penis took me away from all that. For a good ten minutes. Which was a bummer.
I thought it was a great show. The record isn’t easy or necessarily fun to listen to but it packs a certain power.
So while naked seems to be part of the stage show and it made me laugh out loud, the art would have been better with the junk left home to roost. Though to be fair there is context for the naked within the lyrics it just didn’t make it better for me.
I look forward to seeing them again and hope they remain clothed for the sake of the tunes.