Mike Kearney
Dave Wallace
Dougie Coulter
Davide Rinaldi
Charles Dearness
Konrad Wiszniewski
Patrick Darley
Vox, Keys, MD
Electric Guitar
Bass
Drums
Trumpet
Saxophones
Trombone
Relive the glory of the 90s with a jazzfunk twist at This Year’s Edinburgh Festival Fringe
The Katet presents
The Katet Vs. 1995
Returning to this year’s Edinburgh Festival Fringe is another ambitious show from master arranger, Mike Kearney and his 7-piece ‘funk colossus’ and Fringe stalwarts - The Katet.
Sing-along to world class arrangements of the top of the pops, but reinvented for a modern audience with a jazz-funk twist, in a charismatic and high-octane performance by award-winning Edinburgh session musicians with over a decade of Fringe experience. Get transported back to the glory days of the 90s with non-stop mashups of Oasis, Blur, Radiohead, Take That, Seal, Scatman, Pulp, Sheryl Crow, Coolio, Green Day and many more.... What were you listening to in 1995?
The Katet relish a challenge, consistently pushing the boundaries of what they can pull off. Since 2013 they’ve been choosing exciting and diverse artists and concepts to build their Fringe shows around. Check out previous SELL-OUT Fringe shows, The Katet Vs. John Williams(here) and The Katet Vs. Stevie Wonder(here) . The Katet Vs. 1995 is the first of 3 shows in the band’s 90s Series scheduled for launch in consecutive years, all 30 years on…
Speaking of the creation of the show, bandleader/arranger Mike Kearney says, ‘This is the music I grew up with and each show is, first and foremost, an ambitious and personal exploration of who I am as an artist and an expression of where I am in my journey.’
To date, The Katet have released 4 albums of original music with 2 more in production and fast approaching is the 20 year anniversary of not only the band, but of The Jazz Bar, the venue of their birth and decade long residency(2005-2015) which was recently saved from oblivion by a community takeover and crowd funder. To celebrate the rebirth of this award-winning music venue, The Katet’s new series proudly delivers something very special indeed to celebrate the past, and the future, of the community that has supported them for so long.
LISTINGS INFO
Venue: The Jazz Bar
Tickets: £15 (£12.50)
Ticketlink: https://www.edfringe.com/tickets/whats-on/the-katet-vs-1995
Dates: Aug 2026
Time: 23:00 (90min)
"The Katet are re-scoring 1995 in Technicolor funk"
One4Review ****
"The funk is thicker than ever... cinematic jazz-soul." One4Review ****
"(1995) Reimagined as a second-line parade, horns blasting, dance floor shaking... pure theatre" One4Review ****
"Something of a funk Colossus" Â Edinburgh Evening News *****
"There's Jazz, there's funk, and then there's The Katet!"
James Corden *****
"Edinburgh funk behemoths... a masterclass in the madness of jazz-funk"Â Channel 7A
The Katet Vs. 1995
4*** - One4Review 18 aug 2025
The Katet are back, and the funk is thicker than ever. This time they’ve pointed their horn section squarely at 1995 — a year of Britpop swagger, MTV saturation, and late-night slow jams — and retooled it with syncopated grooves, deep bass pockets, and brass hooks sharp enough to cut glass.
​
They set the mood from the off with a simmering jam: I’ll Be There for You flipped into a gospel-funk fanfare, Over My Shoulder cruising on Rhodes keys, and Love Will Save the Day stretched out over basslines that could’ve wandered off a Stevie Wonder deep cut. Breakfast at Tiffany’s shakes off its college-radio jangle to become a horn-heavy swinger, while the Britpop run (Common People, Year 2000, Alright) is reimagined with fat backbeats and sax solos that raise grins all round. By the time High and Dry gets its unexpected calypso shuffle, the sunshine is pouring in, only for Waterfalls to slip back down on liquid grooves. The hip muso nymphs in the crowd are loving every beat.
​
Then the lights dim and the mood shifts. Street Spirit broods on muted trumpet and moody bass drones; Kiss from a Rose swells into a cinematic jazz-soul torch song. But just when the set threatens to get too introspective, the pendulum swings violently back with a funk-cooked Cotton Eye Joe — a hoedown reimagined as a second-line parade, horns blasting, dance floor shaking.
From there, it’s pure theatre. The Britney vs Christina showdown (Toxic, Oops I Did It Again, Beautiful, Genie in a Bottle, Lady Marmalade) struts in like a carnival — wah-wah guitars, slap bass, and brass swagger firing off in all directions. The Oasis suite follows close behind (Rock n Roll Star, Wonderwall, Champagne Supernova, Don’t Look Back in Anger), sending the room into full beer-soaked choir mode, lifted by horn stabs and funk-drenched crescendos.
​
The finale throws subtlety out the window. Blur’s Girls and Boys riffs like Gil Evans in Ibiza, All I Wanna Do lounges, How Bizarre skips on reggae offbeats, Boom Boom Boom explodes into party-funk, and Mr Bombastic swaggers on a ska groove. The Katet stitch it all together with improviser’s instinct: solos trading, grooves mutating, horns riffing off each other like a brass conversation at full tilt.
​
Not every tune quite survives the transplant — a couple of ballads never shake off their karaoke DNA — but that’s almost irrelevant. What matters is the feel: the sweat, the horn blasts, the bass you feel in your sternum. The Katet are re-scoring 1995 in Technicolor funk.
​
Proof that even a year stuffed with Britpop and boybands gets a whole lot better when you swing it, syncopate it, and blast it through a brass section.
****
Reviewed by Steve H​