Dopamine floods the system – a neurotransmitter sparking pleasure, motivation, and movement. Onstage at Liverpool’s Jacaranda Baltic, Jon Moody is riding the high, his brain lighting up in real-time. Each bass groove, each sculpted beat feeds the cycle, overriding fatigue and sharpening focus. Locked into the rhythm of Chewing The Fat – Franc Moody’s fourth album, and their first on a new label – he grins as he locks eyes with co-performer Ned Franc, exchanging an unspoken thrill before the next drop hits.
It’s this connection, the unfiltered joy of making music together, that pulses through every note, lifting the performance beyond its technical execution. Franc and Moody lose themselves to the funk, their sheer enjoyment acting as an invitation to the crowd to do the same as they plough through cherry-picked highlights from the new record, released last Friday, starting strong with lead single, ‘Space Between Us’. Indeed, there’s not much space between punters, who all left their homes on this particular Monday evening inexplicably kitted out in cargo trousers.
Few look more rockstar than Moody, though, in his electric red cargos, black John Cooper Clarke vest and mohawk. Looking like Bill Bailey’s ragamuffin nephew, he expertly pivots between keyboard, laptop and bass while warming the crowd up in a city the outfit hasn’t played before, making quips about how their drummer has “turned into a laptop”.
They use a backing track to make up for their reduction in numbers, but on the whole, don’t suffer for it; there are still great moments of improvisation and funk breaks. Franc, who looks like Marshall Mathers if he moved to Berlin, is a little quieter when it comes to crowd interaction and sometimes his delicate falsetto threatens to be drowned out by the mixing, which is muddy to say the least. But, with an intentional movement away from “the disco sheen” that had crept into the sonics, they’ve certainly achieved their aim of a more “raw and guttural approach”.
The band plays ‘Going Through The Motions’, which really gets the crowd moving; in the track, a Royal Blood-esque drum pattern is layered with flickering synths and the catchy refrain of: “Oh my Lord, I’m in the sweet spot / I need energy / Give me sugar please”.
‘Driving On The Wrong Side Of The Road’ with its obscure falsetto lyrics “I’m a fish out of water / I’m a pineapple on a sea of dough” ones you could see coming out of Everything Everything’s Jonathan Higgs’ mouth, eventually gives way to the vinyl-only cut, ‘Waiting For The Punchline’. This is arguably the funkiest offering of the bunch – rewarding the purists among the crowd who’ve pre-ordered. But, even if you haven’t heard it before it’s easy to move to. “Shall we release that online too?” Moody grins, after a warm reception.
A personal favourite from the record, ‘Square Pegs In Round Holes’, carries a sentimental weight – an anthem for anyone who’s ever dared to be different. But live, its introspective tone leads to a natural lull, the crowd momentarily shifting focus to the bar.
Moody grabs his bass for the titular track, with its simple refrain showing that you don’t need complicated lines to have a good time when the tunes are this tight and the performers are clearly enjoying themselves again – having been underwhelmed by their own Glastonbury set in 2023, sparking somewhat of a reinvention.
After the ‘Bittersweet Symphony’-esque ‘The Light You Bring’, which uses synths in place of soaring strings, the fan favourite, ‘Dopamine’ arrives in an unfamiliar form: a “re-working,” as the pair call it, before self-deprecatingly offering “or a butchering”. It’s slowed, stretched, toyed with – a delayed gratification that rewards those who’ve stuck with them through the less familiar moments of the set. The crowd hesitates, adjusting to this new iteration, before melting into its sway. It’s a reminder that nostalgia and progression can co-exist, that revisiting the past doesn’t have to mean standing still.
Franc Moody are here to move you – whether through the thump of a beat, the slap of a bass, or the screech of a synth. But in truth, the biggest dopamine rush of the night doesn’t come from the closer. It’s in the chemistry between musicians who still, after four albums, approach their craft with an infectious sense of fun. Part of their success lies in this clear, unadulterated enjoyment of each other, which more than makes up for a mucky mix, poor stage lighting, and maybe a venue that’s a little too small for their sound. As the crowd spills into the night, the crisp spring air feels as fresh as the band’s new chapter.
Words by Beth Kirkbride & Jack Mann
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