Prove your humanity


The Wombats @ The Palais, St. Kilda 19/11/2018

You might say that The Wombats are not a rock band, but when you’ve got a guitarist, a bassist and a drummer playing to a packed venue with punters off their seat, dancing and having a great time how can it be anything but?

The Liverpool three-piece have been together for a long time now, and the ease in which they communicate with each other shows that.

After a slightly mechanical start, the trio started having some fun with it in between songs, and it was good. It was entertaining. It was actually funny to watch, and frontman Matthew Murphy even had to start all over again because he caught a fit of the giggles during one of his intros.

You might say they’re not a rock band, but when bassist Tord Øverland Knudsen spends the entire show bounding around the stage like a puppy on a sugar high, then how can they not be?

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It’s mad to think how long they’ve been around, and how much they owe to their debut album A Guide to Love, Loss & Desperation so it was a little disappointing that their set featured just two songs from it. But sometimes you have to throw the crowd what it wants and this youthful gathering was more than happy with what was on offer.

You might say they’re not a rock band, but when fans are being escorted out for dancing in the isles of this all seater venue, how can they not be?

The trio feed off that sort of energy and maybe the Palais wasn’t really the right venue for them. A standing section would have gone off, but maybe it was the only place that could accommodate the festival style lights and illumination show that they brought with them.

And with songs that get the people going as well as Let’s Dance to Joy Division, Lemon To A Knife Fight and Tokyo, how could it be anything but a success?

The Wombats might have left their indie roots behind them, but live they’re the perfect mix of choreographed and spontaneous. Radio pop/rock and guitar. They’re loved in Australia, and you can see why.