The crowd are impatiently waiting for the band to arrive on stage whilst a sleeping wombat on a big screen grabs the attention of the people, every so often opening its eyes to receive a large cheer. Alexandra Palace fills up with young, indie-loving fans that light up a cigarette in the tight, indoor crowd. Yes, the Jeremy Corbyn chant had also popped up a couple of times during the wait.
The Night Café were first to present themselves on the Ally-Pally stage and started off with a very relaxed and mellow set before The Wombats were ready to bless the crowd with something much more exhilarating. The Liverpool based Indie band are the epitome of Indie music with their jingly guitar sounds and bopping drum beats. The band perform tracks such as ‘Mixed Signals’ and ‘Addicted’, both incredible songs but the crowd didn’t really get the feel of it in such a large venue. What I expected was a huge reception for this up-and-coming band, but the outcome was slightly disappointing as members of the audience were just stood on their phones or chatting away with their friends. Some bands are just more suited for smaller venues.
Liverpudlian indie band The Wombats were only 2 songs into their headline show at Alexandra Palace before having to restart their song ‘1996’ twice due to collapsing fans in the middle of the pits. “Let’s see if we can get through this next song, Kill The Director” lead singer Matthew Murphy amusingly mutters over the mic after giving up with ‘1996’ and breaking into the rom-com themed track, taken from their debut album, The Wombats Proudly Present….A Guide To Love, Loss and Desperation.
This isn’t the bands first time playing the 10,000-capacity venue in London and they really know how to get a huge crowd going. A number of their absolute classics pop up in the setlist, such as ‘Techno Fan’, ‘Moving to New York’ and ‘Let’s Dance to Joy Division’, where the iconic artwork for Unknown Pleasures ripples behind the band as they blast their final song.
The production was very creative and themed perfectly well with each song. A multi-coloured wombat head with patterned eyes as if it were tripping on a class-a drug occupied the screen for most of the time they played. Tiny wombat head emoji’s floated around the backdrop whilst the band played ‘Emoticons’, and gigantic lemons rolling down a long road fit the title of ‘Lemon to a Knife Fight’, the first release from their brand new album, Beautiful People Will Ruin Your Life.
Their 3-song encore began and they play perhaps 3 of their biggest tracks to date. Starting with ‘Turn’ the most popular release from their new album, and the most electronic across the LP. Lead Singer Matthew Murphy described the track as “a beautiful mistake” in an interview with Paste Magazine, and beautiful it is. Ending on a high with ‘Greek Tragedy’, their most played song on Spotify, red and white confetti and large, colourful balloons filled the room as the audience took in the last few minutes of the show. The 3-piece band are joined by 4 people in gigantic wombat costumes running around the stage and distracting each member of the band. Murphy begins dancing with one of them, “That was Margot Robbie in that wombat’s costume.”
The Wombats are coming to the end of their UK tour with only 2 more dates left before they head off to embark on the European leg of their tour, promoting their wonderful new album, Beautiful People Will Ruin Your Life.
Words by Rebecca Togher
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