One deep-fried rave, to go: How Fatboy Slim ended up playing in a chip shop

The word went out on social media at 5pm Wednesday: Fatboy Slim would play an hour-long set at Northern Soul Chip Shop in St Kilda from 6.30pm.

By 5.03pm, the queue was starting to form on Inkerman Street. By the time he began playing, the serving area, the kitchen and the courtyard of the tiny English-style fish and chippery were packed (the deep fryers were not, thankfully, on).

English DJ Fatboy Slim (aka Norman Cook) playing a pop-up set at St Kilda’s Northern Soul Chip Shop. Credit: Duncographic

Outside, hundreds of people crowded both sides of the street and the traffic island in the middle of it just so they could one day tell their kids, “I was there”. Sort of.

After all, it’s not every day one of the world’s biggest DJs throws a rave in such a small venue.

“At my age, there’s very few things left on my bucket list, and playing in a chip shop was one of those,” says Slim (aka Norman Cook, the 61-year-old who in the mid-1980s was the bassist for indie-pop band The Housemartins).

“I’ve played in a butcher’s, and I’ve played in an igloo. I’ve done some stupid places, but I’ve never done a chip shop, and I’m very pleased and proud. It’s really just a fun thing to do, isn’t it?”

It was a dream come true too for Northern Soul owner Jess Tosh, who started the business with her partner Joe Grimshaw in a food truck during COVID (it has been in its current home since 2021). But it was a little more stressful than fun to bring to fruition.

The pair have been running their Soul Sessions with local DJs since the shop opened; Wednesday night was their 100th. But it was their first with an audience, and clearing that with Port Phillip Council took time, and a lot of work.

Mushroom is touring Fatboy Slim (he plays the Barossa Valley on Friday, Mt Duneed Winery near Geelong on Saturday and Mt Cotton in Queensland on Sunday), and reached out to Tosh three weeks ago to ask what her wildest idea of a collaboration would look like. She floated the idea of a gig on the newly extended St Kilda Pier, but it was too expensive.

“So we were just like, let’s just do it in the shop,” Tosh says. “To be honest, that was really the best outcome for us because that’s where we do our usual recordings.”

Tosh and Grimshaw, who moved from Manchester to Australia a decade ago and taught themselves how to make fish and chips by watching YouTube videos, met at a club in Liverpool. On Wednesday, Grimshaw opened for Fatboy Slim.

Fatboy Slim at St Kilda’s Northern Soul Chip Shop. Credit: Duncographic

“We were going to find someone else to do the warm-up set, but Joe was, ‘You know what, I can’t mess up on this one’. So he decided to do it himself.”

And when it was over, did she kick on with Cook at his set at nearby Revolver?

“Oh no, absolutely not,” she says. “We just cleaned up the shop. I gave it a good scrub and went to bed.”