The Wombats. Factoid: The collective noun is a wisdom of Wombats…
So I will suggest that it is a wise move to grab a ticket for the remaining four gigs of this Liverpool band’s eight date UK tour, based upon their superb pre-Christmas cracker of a performance in Birmingham last night [Saturday].
The bp pulse Live [stylised title] venue was in its Academy format, with circa 7,100 fans in [the arena setting can hold just over 15,000], and this more intimate affair enabled a lovely vibe and the band were able to feed off the energy in the crowd and vice versa.
The 21-song set opened with the excellent “Sorry I’m Late, I Didn’t Want To Come”, which was the first single released from the band’s sixth studio album, “Oh! The Ocean” which dropped in February this year. An extended version of the LP came out on Friday containing four additional tracks.
Opening the set with a song about folk preferring to be at home, but end up going out anyway – based on the title of the book by Jessica Pan from 2019 – is the juxtaposition of what we all feel on this Saturday night in this West Midlands live music venue.
Night # four of the tour, tonight only one support act as local West Midlands band Overpass had to pull out on doctor’s orders to the poorly singer; leaving Scotland’s The Snuts as the sole opening band in Birmingham.
It is 22 years since headliners The Wombats formed as a young trio at LIPA [Liverpool Institute of Performing Arts], with the core of the band still in tact: Matthew “Murph” Murphy [lead vocals, guitar, keyboards], Tord Øverland Knudsen [bass, backing vocals, keyboards], and Dan Haggis [drums, backing vocals, keyboards].
Following their 2007 debut album, “A Guide to Love, Loss & Desperation”, the band released 2011’s “This Modern Glitch”, “Glitterbug” in 2015, “Beautiful People Will Ruin Your Life” in 2018, and 2022’s “Fix Yourself, Not the World” rewarded them with their first # one album.
Second song of the night, “Moving To New York” was a welcome blast from the past; taken from their debut album. This track had the bass pumping into your chest and propelling the dancers in the place to give it some welly.
Six songs in, “Ready For The High” features the appearance of a giant wombat with a trombone. Either that or those mushrooms in the omelette I had before the show really were magic!
A good few songs later in the set, the superb “Tokyo (Vampires & Wolves)” is a track that never gets old.
SETLIST
1. Sorry I’m Late, I Didn’t Want To Come
2. Moving To New York
3. Cheetah Tongue
4. Techno Fan
5. Kate Moss
6. Ready For The High
7. Can’t Say No
8. 1996
9. Pink Lemonade
10. Holy Sugar
11. Kill The Director
12. My Head Is Not My Friend
13. Lethal Combination
14. Blood On The Hospital Floor
15. Tokyo (Vampires & Wolves)
16. Method To The Madness
17. Lemon To A Knife Fight
18. If You Ever Leave, I’m Coming With You
19. Turn
ENCORE
20. Greek Tragedy
21. Let’s Dance To Joy Division
“Turn” ends the main set, [which features the very apt lyric, “It won’t get better than this” to pretty much sum up this gig], the cue for giant balloons to drop from above to be batted about around the venue.
Then it is the brace of songs for the encore. “Greek Tragedy” – a decade-old song which was resurrected in 2021 via exposure on TikTok – precedes the one pretty much all of us had waited for…
“Let’s Dance To Joy Division”, during which I wondered if those mushrooms were kicking in again; when I began seeing an ensemble of Wombats dancing about on stage while firing out confetti canons! Or did I?
- The Wombats have already done the biz in Edinburgh, Aberdeen, Newcastle and now Birmingham; tonight [7th Dec] it is Bournemouth’s turn before a night off and then over to Dublin and Belfast, before closing the tour in Blackpool on 11th Dec.
Photos by Jason Sheldon [Not image top of page]
Words by Les Howard
