4/30: The Wombats @ 930 Club

 

“Hello Washington, my sweet babies.”

These were the first words uttered by The Wombats lead vocalist, Matthew “Murph” Murphy at the 930 Club here in DC. These weren’t his last, as the band hailing from Liverpool played 90 minutes of joy-filled, energetic music, full of youthful lyrics sung by Murph and the majority of the audience.

The Wombats had an energy and persona on stage that could only come from playing for more than 12 years together as a band. Each member of the trio laughed, joked, and smiled their way through their set, feeding off one another’s energy. Bassist Tord Overland perhaps gave the most energetic performance, dancing bombastically across seemingly every part of the stage that night, and once even falling over during their number “Greek Tragedy,” as drummer Dan Haggis described: “ass over tit.” But Overland got back up and the band played on, albeit a bit giggly. Throughout the entire performance, the band led a hilarious chant of “Grossman,” their nickname for their tour manager, Simon Fuller, highlighting the hallmark playful nature of The Wombats. (We’re simply going to assume that Wombats are playful marsupials based on how friendly Murph, Dan, and Tord were.)

When we spoke to Murph in our interview prior to the show, he said he was thrilled to be on another US and Canada tour, this tour so far having “been the best US tour we’ve done,” with an increased North American following and The Wombats’ first sold out show in DC. The show at 930 was definitely a testament to this, as nearly everyone sang along to each song, reacting with shouts of joy to each song in the set. The Wombat’s opened with their first release from their newest album, “Your Body Is A Weapon,” following it up with the older “Jump Into The Fog” and an energetic drum transition into one of their originals, “Moving to New York.” The band played songs from every one of their albums, including numerous ones from their recently released Glitterbug. Though the album was released only 17 days prior to the show, the audience had no difficulty in picking out each song and singing and dancing along. While the most recent album had more electronic elements, the live performance of both new and older songs blew the crowd away with an incredible driving energy that never died down, even during their slowest numbers. The band’s performance of their whimsical classic, “Little Miss Pipedream” was even better than the original album version, with Dan playing the keyboard, bass drum, and harmonica, at one point simultaneously, and had the crowd swaying and chanting along to the peculiar lyrics, giving the crowd a bit of a rest from the mostly upbeat set. The band closed out their encore with their hit single from their first album, “Let’s Dance to Joy Division” igniting the crowd in a wild and ecstatic fervor, every single person dancing and jumping up and down to the music.

The Wombats delivered a truly memorable performance on Thursday night’s show at the 930 club, giving every part of the audience what they wanted, delivering each song with a festive and gleeful stroke, and enjoying themselves heavily as they went.

 

 

Yours Truly,

Anour Esa & Julie Hansen

 

Photo Credit: Meghan Montgomery and Anour Esa