LIVE REVIEW | The Chats, Manchester Victoria Warehouse, 08/12/24 by Craig Harston

Playing to a crowd of all ages, with plenty of mullets and moustaches, Queensland’s The Chats played a lean, mean show, rattling through 25 songs in less than an hour but ensured no one left feeling short-changed!

Soon after hitting the stage, frontman and bass player Eamon Sandwith announced that The Chats were here to play some songs before diving straight into their first song, ‘Nambored’, the beginning of a musical tour of Australian culture – Eamon stating that the first song was about a shithole on the Sunshine Coast and the follow up, ‘Billy Backwash’s Day’, was about the residents of said shithole! Barely slowing down for a second, the shed punkers blasted through songs mostly from their brace of albums, 2020’s ‘High Risk Behaviour’ and 2022’s ‘Get Fucked’ as well as from 2017 EP ‘Get This In Ya’. When Eamon announced “This next song is about a CAR”, the crowd went wild before joining in on the choruses of ‘6L GTR’ and getting some clapping going over the bridge. ‘Emperor Of The Beach’ also got a great reception, featuring the excellent back and forth between Eamon and guitarist Josh Hardy (who later sang ‘Getting Better’).

Going hell for leather through their next few songs, including ‘Out On The Street’, ‘Stinker’ (with Eamon reminding everyone to look after each other), a blistering rendition of ‘Drunk n Disorderly’, ‘Casualty’ (“a song about watching the news”), ‘Nazi March’, a thundering version of ‘Paid Late’ and a song about panic attacks (called ‘Panic Attack’!), the band then played two of the easy highlights of the night – ‘Ticket Inspector’, which received huge cheers during it’s bass solo, and fan favourite song ‘The Price Of Smokes’, which went down an absolute storm! ‘Struck By Lightning’ and ‘Identity Theft’ followed before Eamon dedicated the excellent ‘Smoko’ to everyone who had work the next day!

The Chats of course didn’t even take the time for a break before an encore, going straight into their final songs of the night. ‘4573’ was about where they grew up, they played Kiss cover ‘Rock And Roll All Night’ (dedicated to everyone who didn’t have work the next day!) which they adapted well to their brand of punk rock before finishing on an immense high with ‘Pub Feed’.

For a cold Sunday night in December, The Chats, rounded out by drummer Matt Boggis, absolutely brought the Australian sunshine to the UK and proved once again why they’re masters of the 2-3 minute song.

The Chats UK tour is currently on going and will finish with three nights in a row at London’s Electric Ballroom, and they are due to return to the England in 2025 for the Reading and Leeds Festival.

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Craig Harston

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