The Wombats Live at Manchester Academy Review

Nathan Smith | 12th March 2018

It may be too soon to start claiming performance of the year, but after The Wombats braced Manchester’s Academy last night, we may already be there…

Following three hugely successful albums drenched in teenage angst and chanty singalong choruses, the Liverpool trio have made a name for themselves as the voice of the generation, one that seems to constantly regenerate as the average demographic maintains to dominate the 16-18 age group.

Entering the stage to a psychedelic backdrop of a trippy visualisation of, you guessed it, a wombat, adjusting itself retrospectively to match each track playing. Oddly enough its purpose was more than just to look cool, more to represent the maturity of the band as they enter their 15th year.

The night seamlessly flowed between tracks new and old, as they now have a plethora of angsty tracks from their four albums, following the recent release of ‘Beautiful People Will Ruin Your Life’.

It could be said that most of The Wombats’ tracks sound much the same, but album number four takes the band in a new direction with a heavier more distorted sound as heard in ‘Black Flamingo’ and ‘Lemon to a Knife Fight’. It something that’s on full show when played live as the hands-in-the-air sing-alongs transforms more into a heavy mosh pit.

Some might say it would be a brave decision to play more than a couple of unknown tracks to a sell out gig, but the army of fans seemed to know every word with never ending moshing from start to finish. They played six new tracks flawlessly sandwiched between classics, one of which caused the show to come to a temporary stand still due to fighting. After a swift restart and frontman Matthew Murphy declaring “it’s only love and sexual intercourse”, things were back underway.

Bringing the night to a close after a thunderous applause demanding an encore, The Wombats returned with large helium balloons bouncing around Manchester Academy. During finale ‘Greek Tragedy’ some actual Wombats appeared dancing along the stage, concluding a night of pure energy, youthful spirit and immense pleasure to an end.