Music > Live Reviews
The Wombats @ UEA
01/10/15
Everyone has that one band that perfectly captured their cringe worthy teenage years, a band that bring back the terror of exam papers, the embarrassment of early relationships and improvising terrible air guitars at even more terrible parties. Liverpool indie rockers The Wombats are that band for me, and hundreds of other teenage obsessives, as their triumphant return to Norwich UEA proved on an apocalyptic school night in September.
The Night Café opened the show, a new Liverpool band with a sound reminiscent of Circa Waves and Little Comets’ quirky rock style. With a very tight act and impressive musical talent, especially on Run, their set was well received by the lively teenage audience. Unfortunately, Reading quartet and second support Sundara Karma hardly maintained the buzz. As a band who’ve been dancing round the fringes of the mainstream for a while this should have been their big break, but disturbingly sub-standard vocals and music they themselves have described as “perhaps a blander, slightly less invigorating version of everything we’re into” made a 30 minute set drag on for an eternity.
Finally the lights dimmed and The Wombats took to the stage – Matthew ‘Murph’ Murphy on vocals and lead guitar, Tord Knudsen on keyboards and Dan Haggis backing the trio from a platform engulfed in images of twinkling city lights and purple skyscrapers. Like the pin being pulled from a grenade they exploded into Give Me A Try and the whole room began to jump in unison, waves of ecstasy bursting out from the trio on stage only to be lapped up by the masses at their feet. Next came some older material – the emotive, keyboard heavy Jump Into the Fog and 1996 from the band’s second album This Modern Glitch and fan favourite Moving to New York between the two, with an added fiery guitar introduction. A showcase of latest LP Glitterbug followed, including the powerful Your Body Is A Weapon with its sing-along chorus, Pink Lemonade which inspired new energy amongst the crowd and The English Summer, a little out of place on a cold September evening but fitting the atmosphere in the room magnificently with its jumpy guitars and alt-pop drum beat.
Taking a break to give the room a well-deserved rest from the constant mosh pits and arm thrusts, Murph delivered a stirring speech about “a man in Texas who thinks the world’s gonna end tonight. Some people refute his claims, but let’s fucking dance like the world’s gonna end anyway”, leading the room into an electric rendition of Techno Fan. As the set reached its conclusion the band gratefully remarked that this had been one of their best Sunday night gigs in a long time, and reminisced selling out the same venue multiple times before – “Cheers for coming out to see us again, it means the world”. The pumping introduction to Kill the Director preceded a deafening karaoke “to the angst of a teenage band” before Tokyo (Vampires & Wolves) closed the show accompanied by enormous circle pits opening on the dance floor through the smoke and lasers that beautifully mirrored the screaming synthesizers and keyboards.
Following a short breather, Murph returned to stage performing Isabel acoustically, mesmerising the room in a welcome break from the energetic pop songs of the evening. Then, to raucous applause the rest of the band joined him to close the evening with the rapturous Greek Tragedy and the one everyone had been waiting for, Let’s Dance to Joy Division, which saw an ecstatic teenage fan dragged away after getting slightly too overexcited and climbing on stage. An extended ending “for you in the middle who look like you need one last dance” saw the evening conclude with style and gratitude, on the band’s part and from the satisfied sell-out audience, now drenched in sweat, every single one beaming.