LIVE FROM THE PIT: The Chats, The Prize and Rifle

Aussie punk three-piece The Chats touched down (…up?) in the UK for their final tour of the year, stopping off in Liverpool for a less than sober evening of rock’n’roll ragers and Australian pop-culture references that a European crowd can just about understand.

Despite having quite a few UK tours under their belt by this point, this was their first ever time playing a show in Liverpool. And what a venue to do it in. Built out of an old factory and tucked away near a retail park by the River Mersey, The Invisible Wind Factory is an eclectically decorated venue that doubles as a roller disco when concerts aren’t happening. It’s a room where you can just feel how lived-in and loved it’s been over the years.

It was a stacked lineup from start to finish. London punks Rifle started us off for the night, giving us a set of blisteringly angry punk rock anthems. Having only released their first EP in 2022 and a second the following year, the crowd was treated to a rare moment of getting to see a band still finding their feet. We’re excited to see what these guys do next off the back of this tour. Our second support is The Prize. Forming in 2021 in Melbourne, this five piece are also still finding their identity. It’s great to see a band of The Chats’ size uplifting up and coming bands like this. Reminiscent of bands like Amyl and the Sniffers and The Interrupters, The Prize were an absolute treat to watch live.

The Chats hardly wasted any time getting started, jumping straight into ‘Nambored’ the moment they got onstage. Bassist and vocalist Eamon Sandwith was incredible to watch onstage, shouting out his lyrics as he slammed out the chuggy bass lines The Chats have become so well known for. Backed by guitarist Josh Hardy and drummer Matthew Boggis, they were an utterly unstoppable unit.

Ripping through 25 songs in just under an hour, The Chats can’t write a slow song to save their lives. They couldn’t even play their already incredibly fast songs at the right speed, with ‘Smoko’ taking half the amount of time to complete live as it did on the record. And who could blame them? The energy in the room was palpable and the crowd were purely electric, it was non-stop movement across the entire floor.

Things only kept picking up towards the end of the night. The crowd got treated to a cover of Kiss’s ‘Rock And Roll All Night’, which the band dedicated to people who weren’t going to work the day after the show. Immediately after this, The Chats jumped into their final song of the night, ‘Pub Feed’, a gem of a track simply about having a good pub dinner. Despite the 9,000 miles between England and Australia, there’s nothing that unites the two cultures like drinking and pub culture (as was evident by the many drunk fans stumbling out of the venue at the end of the show), and they couldn’t have picked a better song to finish on. They left the crowd on an incredible high, and we (and everyone else in the room) can’t wait to see what they get up to next.

Words and Photos: Izzy Scott