Fust bring their tour to Leeds’ Brudenell Social Club
The North Carolina band brought their ‘United Kingdom’ tour to Leeds.
Photo: Charlie Boss
It may only be January, but I can pretty confidently say that the Brudenell Social Club won’t hear many bigger choruses over the course of an evening as it did when Fust came to town.
It’s fair to say that Fust’s Big Ugly was one of my favourite records of 2025. I played those songs endlessly throughout the year. On a live stage, though, they really take flight. The band plays them like their lives depend on it.
Avery Sullivan’s drumming is the beating heart that the entire band revolves around and provides these songs with endless power and momentum. Match this up with their mean-sounding guitar tones and Libby Rodenbough’s gorgeous fiddle playing, and these songs really do take off.
Of course, the real stars of the show, though, are the incredible songs that frontman Aaron Dowdy has in his repertoire. The band flew into Big Ugly highlights Gateleg and Jody early on in the set, and it was nigh on impossible not to get swept up in the joyous euphoria those songs filled the room with as they exploded into their choruses.
Halfway through the set, Fust really threw down the gauntlet with their pulsating electric cover of George Jones 1999 country hit Choices. Covering Jones is like covering The Beatles. It shouldn’t really be done. You can’t improve on perfection. What can you add to the performances of those songs, really? However, Fust didn’t just perform this song. They were consumed by it. They played this song as if they lived and breathed it.
It all adds up because, in a sense, all of Fust’s songs are about choices, the ones we make and the very human circumstances that lead us to them. Like the choice to go and “work at Maggie’s store” or the choice to use someone else’s language whilst you “still dream in mine”. They are even about the choices we don’t make that affect us all the same, like the choice to “tear down the hospital out on route 11”.
On the surface, these songs may explore what it’s like to make these choices traversing life through North Carolina but, deep down, they really are about much more than that. They are songs about community, friendship and the values that we carry with us. They are universal, and Dowdy’s attention to the minor details, so often the most important ones, is what sets his songwriting apart.
Fust are able to reel you into a world you may never experience simply by making it feel like you are already there. Set closer Spangled — one of my favourite songs of 2025 — brought the house down. On a night full of big, cathartic songs, Spangled is perhaps the perfect encapsulation of everything that Fust does best. It is a huge song. Everywhere you looked, smiles filled people’s faces just to hear it.
Earlier on in the show, during Jody, Dowdy sang that “I’ll never get enough of what I’ve got.” I think everybody shared that same sentiment as they walked out of the Brudenell into the cold January air after seeing Fust.
