On a cold, wet night in Melbourne, a sea of umbrellas patiently waited outside the Palais Theatre in St Kilda to see Liverpudlian indie rockers, The Wombats. Fans, most of whom couldn’t have been older than 21 years old, braved the weather to see the UK trio, whose tunes are more infectious than the common cold. Inside the 83 year old venue, the lights dimmed, the strobes flickered and close on 3000 voices greeted the band, who admittedly didn’t know what a wombat was when selecting their name.
The Wombats opened their sold out concert with ‘Our Perfect Disease’, the opening track off of their three week old sophomore album, This Modern Glitch. Taking a minute or two to fully warm up, the band was in full flight by the time they progressed to ‘Kill The Director’, coincidentally, the second song off of their first album, A Guide To Love, Loss and Desperation. There was no stopping them now. The set was perfectly balanced. As if meticulously planned, they played exactly 50% from their first album and 50% from their second album. Gaining momentum like a freight train, the performance got better and better with each song. The concert was wrought with quirky banter and anecdotes.
Before hurtling into ‘Here Comes The Anxiety’, drummer Dan Haggis searched around frantically before admitting that “this is the case of the missing tambourine”. Going on to tell the audience how they had caught a flight from Sydney early that morning, he explained that the tambourine was packed away in one of the suitcases. Just then, to the sound of tambourine rattling in the distance he exclaimed “what’s that magical jingle I hear?” before a roadie handed him the missing instrument. Ironically, the opening lyrics of the imminent song say “no hint of a smile, or the usual quirky anecdote.” Before playing current single, ‘Techno Fan’, lead vocalist Matthew Murphy explained how this song was inspired by an ex-girlfriend who took him to a rave in London. Murphy introduced ‘Schumacher The Champagne’ as the band’s “electro grunge rock ballad”, a song that seemingly killed Haggis’ throat. He was seen to be holding his throat and downing a full bottle of water after the tune. Murphy channelled Hendrix at the end of ‘Backfire At The Disco’ and after the song Øverland-Knudsen stopped to compliment some fans in the top tier who were holding up a large banner. “Lovely poster up on the balcony. I can see up my nose from here,” he joked. All the while Tord Øverland-Knudsen, bassist and backing vocalist, was flailing around the stage like a ribbon tied to a fan without skipping a note.
Before playing smash hit single, ‘Tokyo (Vampires and Wolves)’, Murphy announced that that would “probably be the last song”. The band left the stage while the charade of packing up went on on stage. The encore has become the biggest cliché in live music. Predictably, the band returned while a collage of eyes played on the screen behind them. They performed ‘My First Wedding’ before ending with their signature tune, ‘Let’s Dance To Joy Division’. The song ended with Murphy and Øverland-Knudsen singing á Capella accompanied by Haggis’s beat. Continuing with the refrain “we’re so happy”, the concert eventually came to a halt but not before the band took their bows while the epic theme from Jurassic Park played over the PA. Murphy dropped to his knees, threw his hands in the air and looked to the skies, intoning“As always Melbourne, you’re amazing. I think we had a bit of a moment back there. Thanks for making that happen.”
– Brett Schewitz
