The Wombats – Live Review – First Direct Arena, Leeds
By David Schuster, March 2025
It’s become traditional at Yorkshire gigs for the crowd to chant the name of our fair county in any breaks in the music. Unfortunately, with several hundred voices all slightly out of time with each other, it’s easily misinterpreted. “The first time we played in Leeds,” says singer Matthew Murphy, pausing between numbers, “we thought you were shouting ‘You’re sh*t!’, and, to be fair, we’d have taken that.” It’s perhaps a little cruel of me to mention at this point, that Noel Gallagher, faced with the same situation at the Halifax Piece Hall, reacted very differently.
That wry sense of humour is woven into the lyrics of many of The Wombats’ songs. Their latest single, and opener tonight, ‘Sorry I’m Late, I Didn’t Want to Come’ captures this self-deprecating approach to life. The fact that this, and the second track of the evening, ‘Moving to New York’, released seventeen years earlier, are both greeted with the same wild enthusiasm shows that it’s a formula that has given the band an enduring appeal.
The Wombats have released a conservative six studio albums (or seven, by some counts, their first, ‘Girls, Boys and Marsupials’, was only released in Japan), since forming in 2003. So, tonight’s generous 19 track set is crammed with familiar and crowd pleasing singles. They cover all the bases between ‘Kill the Director’ from 2007’s A Guide to Love, Loss & Desperation, through to the catchy, but gruesomely titled, ‘Blood on the Hospital Floor’ from their latest record Oh! The Ocean, released last year, reaching number 4 in the album charts. In an evening of many highlights, ‘Tokyo (Vampires & Wolves)’ and ‘1996’ offered standout moments. The latter, recently voted as their fans’ favourite, shows that they pay attention to what their audience wants, and it clearly pays off.
“Deeply impressive”
For most of the memorable performance, the standing area of the First Direct Leeds Arena is a packed, swirling mass of folks all energetically moshing. But, there are shades of light and dark in the performance. Murphy plays a haunting solo version of ‘Lethal Combination’, accompanied by a multitude of phone-lights being swayed overhead, and there’s the regretful ‘Kate Moss’; “It’s a beautiful day in my neighbourhood. We’ve got sorrow behind our eyes but we look so good.”
Staging for the show is simple but effective, drummer Dan Haggis on a riser centre stage, with Murphy to left of stage and bassist Tord Øverland Knudsen to the right. It’s a layout which leaves a lot of space between the musicians. However, there’s no danger of them appearing diminished by this, Knudsen manages to both play complex fat baselines whilst running back and forth like he’s playing dodge-ball. It’s deeply impressive to someone like me, who struggles simply to clap in time, that the band take multi-instrumentalism to new levels. All three play keyboards separately, but even more impressively, often at the same time as their main instrument. Haggis is unique (in my experience), at times switching between drum sticks and keyboards with his left hand, whilst still keeping time with his right hand and feet. It gives them a much wider musical range then you might expect from a trio.
“Ecstatic”
This was their last UK gig of the current tour, and the whole show is imbued with an end-of-term party feel. By the time they get to the finale of the main set and, in the words of the frontman they, “pretend to leave, then come back, play some more, and then really leave”, there’s a mob of no less than six people dressed as wombats on stage, all gleefully capering around. Glitter cannons go off and ticker tape rains down from somewhere high above. In the midst of this, the band (not dressed as wombats) are still managing to play the group’s beloved hit, ‘Let’s Dance to Joy Division’. In fact they are clearly loving it.
As promised, they return for a three song encore. We are treated to ‘Can’t Say No’, ‘Turn’ and the deceptively uplifting ‘Greek Tragedy’. Whilst they play this final number, multi-coloured balloons of all sizes drop from the ceiling of the arena, to be batted above the heads of the ecstatic crowd. The collective noun for the marsupial in question is a wisdom of wombats, although that feels inadequate for this endearing, chaotic fun.
images: Gail Schuster
David Schuster describes himself as an “adventurer, collector, musician and writer. Not necessarily in that order.” Growing up west of the Pennine hills of the UK and living his adult life east of them, he’s inclined to think that the Wars of the Roses were a mistake. David loves discovering new bands and musicians and is happiest listening to live music. He has travelled extensively in the UK and is fascinated by the variety, history and landscapes of the thousands of islands that comprise the British Isles. David is always reassured when online shops confirm that he’s not a robot.
