Fatboy Slim Turns Aviva Studios Into a Sweaty Manchester Super-Rave
- Desh Kapur
- 6 hours ago
- 2 min read
Aviva Studios, Manchester - 13th February 2026
WORDS / IMAGES DESH KAPUR
There’s something beautifully fitting about Aviva Studios hosting a Fatboy Slim rave. Manchester’s hulking new cultural centre — all concrete muscle and industrial ambition — feels purpose-built for the kind of communal chaos Norman Cook has been engineering for three decades. On a bitterly cold Friday night, it’s packed to the rafters, radiating heat, noise and anticipation.
Cook, of course, needs little introduction. As Fatboy Slim, he helped drag acid house and big beat from sweaty clubs into the global mainstream without killing the fun. From Brighton Beach parties to headline slots across the world, his career has been built on a simple promise: maximum euphoria, minimum pretension. He’s the rare legacy act who still understands the joy of a proper rave.
Inside Aviva Studios. The crowd is a riot of generations — first-time ravers rubbing shoulders with veterans who were there when “rave” still meant something vaguely illegal. Glow sticks glow, Hawaiian shirts flap wildly, sunglasses stay on well past midnight. If Manchester’s grim weather weren’t lurking outside, you could almost kid yourself — with a heroic amount of imagination — that this was Ibiza.
A run of local DJs do the sensible thing and keep it loose, warming the floor without stealing the moment. When Cook finally appears — barefoot, black jeans, baggy Hawaiian shirt — it’s clear this won’t be a nostalgia exercise. This is the Fatboy Slim Acid Ballroom Tour 2026, and he launches straight into it.
The hits land hard and often. Praise You sparks mass sing-alongs, while The Rockafeller Skank still sounds absurdly potent, its “funk soul brother” hook detonating on impact. Right Here, Right Now delivers its goosebump-inducing orchestral swell, Weapon of Choice slides in with effortless cool, and Eat Sleep Rave Repeat turns the entire room into a manifesto.
Crucially, this doesn’t feel like an arena DJ going through the motions. The set leans closer to a club night than a scripted “greatest hits” show — fluid, playful, occasionally chaotic. Massive visuals pulse across the space, lasers cut through thick haze, and confetti rains down in celebratory bursts. It’s big, brash and gloriously unselfconscious.
By the end, Aviva Studios feels less like a venue and more like a temporary state of mind. Fatboy Slim may be a legacy act by definition, but nights like this prove he’s still operating on rave logic: bring everyone together, turn it up loud, and don’t overthink it. On Friday the 13th in Manchester, Norman Cook reminded everyone why his music — and this culture — refuses to sit quietly in the past.
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