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Fatboy Slim
Big Beach Bootique 5
[Inertia]
There is no denying that Fatboy Slim is somewhat of an institution. Norman Cook gave us some of the biggest dance music blockbuster hits by way of ‘Right Here, Right Now’, ‘Praise You’ and the inimitable ‘Rockerfeller Skank’, safe to say FatBoy Slim is, and always will be, to paraphrase, kind of a big deal.
'Big Beach Bootique 5' is a recording from his hometown show in Brighton and is everything you’d expect from a Fatboy Slim live set; bodacious, four-to-the-floor, in-your-face dirty house tunes, but there is something about the selection on this live LP offering that seems somewhat out of touch. Featuring cuts from likes of Chuckie, Basement Jaxx and Nicky Romero in amongst his biggest bangers that he teases in and out of the mix, it feels like a set that lulls into predictability and as though he still rooted in the sounds of yore rather than select a set to challenge or even remind us why he was such a forerunner of the dance music scene all those years ago. Throwing in a brief interlude by the way of ‘California’ by Tupac seems a little contrived and dated, and a rework of (gulp) LMFAO’s “I’m In Miami Bitch” is just disappointing; rather than pushing the envelope, he’s gone for filler rather than killer.
That being said, watching the live DVD component puts it all into perspective a little more; once you get past the crowd shots of barely clad punters practically foaming at the mouth in what can only be described as an ocean of gurn, Cook seems more in his element than he has been in the past few years of performing (“trainwrecker” seemed to be a word popping up a lot when describing some of his sets in last five years); resplendent in a Hawaiian shirt and bare feet, he emanates the kind of energy DJs in their twenties only wish they could pull off during a two hour set.
Throw on BBB5 next time you’re entertaining, but don’t raise your expectations past a festival set designed to appease drug fucked punters.
Listen to Fatboy Slim on Pulse Radio
