Live Review: The Wombats - The O2, London 15/04/2022
A revved-up bank holiday crowd embraced The Wombats doing what they do best at The O2 as they brought their new number one album to South East London on Good Friday.
Sports Team raced through a 45-minute set which included tracks from July’s incoming sophomore record ‘Gulp!’, and raucous versions of hits like ‘Here’s The Thing’ which saw the six-piece fill Brixton Academy. There was a shoutout to the south London music scene before ‘Camel Crew’, and a version of ‘Fishing’ performed close to the river Thames mentioned in the lyrics.
Alex Rice from the support called The Wombats “the greatest band in the world”, and after a changeover soundtracked by Abbie McCarthy’s well-received DJ set, the trio came to prove it.
Front man Matthew “Murph” Murphy revealed during the show that the band had a coach down from Liverpool for their first London gig in the mid-00s. They don’t force a following now, being expert hands at corralling an audience of thousands for a night of fun, melodies, and epic choruses.
It began with the energetic opener ‘Flip Me Upside Down’, which also introduces the new album. There were seven songs from ‘Fix Yourself, Not The World’ performed across the evening, including ‘This Car Drives All by Itself’, and ‘Ready For The High’, which saw wombat mascots come on-stage to mime the track’s horns.
The rest of the show was fairly split amongst their other four albums. Bubbles floated across a rose-lit stage during ‘Pink Lemonade’, while ‘Techno Fan’, inspired by Murph’s time living in east London, instigated a festival-style reaction, with fans on shoulders in the raucous standing area.
‘Moving To New York’ and ‘Kill The Director’ have such distinctive intros that the crowd powered through the opening lyrics each time, Murph only joining the singing from the second line.
The big band only stepped off the throttle for Murph’s solo acoustic ‘Lethal Combination’, before he requested the crowd to “Dance!” before playing 2010 hit ‘Tokyo (Vampires & Wolves)’ – as if they hadn’t been moving frantically throughout.
There’s no fancy visuals or elaborate stage design; the focus is squarely on the three members. Tord Overland Knudsen’s bass pounded, a springboard to inspire the audience’s holiday moshing. Meanwhile, Dan Haggis’s reliable drumming was cool or crazy depending on requirements – and most noticeably in the spotlight for the intro to ‘Greek Tragedy’, which closed the main set.
“The Germans do mosh pits really well, but you have taken that to another level” Murph told the fans down the front who went, well, mad, for ‘Method to the Madness’ in the inevitable encore.
‘Let’s Dance To Joy Division’ continued the chaos, with the crowd singing every word again, and ending with Murph’s arm around a returning mascot as everyone sang “so happy, yeah we’re so happy”. ‘Turn’ closed out the night with confetti falling from the arena’s cavernous ceiling.
The trio have been a reliable bundle of energy since 2007; if only the national grid could capture big deliveries of indie-pop hits. Before ‘If You Ever Leave, I’m Coming With You’, Murph revealed the gig was his daughter’s first The Wombats show, and he got the crowd to give her a shoutout – “One, two, three, hi Dylan!” It’s a Good day to start. With The Wombats, there are rarely bad ones.
Words by Samuel Draper
Photography by Abigail Shii
