Words & Photos by Marco Denzer
British trio The Wombats recently kicked off their US Tour, and they popped into New York for an excellent performance at Brooklyn Steel. The band’s long awaited show was extremely well received, an obvious fact made clearly evident by the large audience that filled the venue to capacity.
A backdrop banner of their forthcoming album cover Beautiful People Will Ruin Your Life anchored the well-designed minimalist and spacious stage arrangement that provided freedom of movement for the musicians and uncluttered views of the band for the audience in place. Matthew Murphy (lead vocals, keyboards & guitar), Dan Haggis (vocals & drums), and Tord Øverland Knudsen (vocals, keyboards & bass) promptly started their set at 9:30 PM with “Cheetah Tongue” – the first song on their new release.
The night’s setlist included a great mix of popular songs chock full of romantic lyrics and vignettes selected from the albums A Guide to Love, Loss & Desperation, This Modern Glitch, Glitterbug, and Beautiful People Will Ruin Your Life. A broad-range repertoire that coupled with a very pleasant, colorful, and dynamic lighting design presentation kept the audience engaged without inducing vertigo on anyone with dizzying flashes of strobe lights. It was obvious, judging by the dancing and singing going on in the crowd, that people were having a really good time… and clearly that energy affected the band in a similar manner, because there was plenty of bantering, jumping around, and laughing going on among the band members on stage.
With the album Beautiful People Will Ruin Your Life officially scheduled to be released on February 9th, The Wombats will continue their highly recommended tour through cities like Atlanta, St. Louis, Denver, L.A., and Portland, before ending the first part of the tour January 31st. The trio will return for the second part of their US Tour 2018 during June and July; they have concerts scheduled in Tampa, New Orleans, Austin, and more.
Setlist:
Cheetah Tongue
Give Me a Try
1996
Kill The Director
Black Flamingo
Jump Into the Fog
Emoticons
Lemon To A Knife Fight
Here Comes The Direness
Tokyo
English Summer
Pink Lemonade
Turn
Techno Fan
Moving to NY
Encore:
Let’s Dance to Joy Division
Greek Tragedy
thewombats.co.uk
TheWaster.com | Brooklyn
1.15.18
