When you’re going to go see a band whose entire discography is represented in your YouTube “Favorite” playlist in the form of live videos dating back to 2008, you tend to get excited when the date on those tickets finally matches the calendar’s.
Having said that, believe me when I say that Thursday night at the Paradise was a gloriously happy night for everybody. The Wombats, those effervescently hilarious Brit-pop rockers from Liverpool, England, put on a spectacle of a show that was so violently, righteously great that my new Facebook profile picture with drummer Dan Haggis now reads, “This was taken before the show became one of Top 5 concerts of my life. Maybe top 3. Judgment pending.”
Singer/guitarist/keyboardist Matthew Murphy, Dan, and bassist/keyboardist Tord Overland-Knudsen, (or as I like to call them, “The Whitest Rap Collective Names Ever”) are all frontmen at heart. Sure, they might disguise it underneath a shy, terribly nice British exterior, but at some point in the show, every single one dominated the stage like Napoleon in a limbo contest. Murphy (affectionately called “Murph” by virtually everybody except the DMV) nearly drowned the mic with spit, prompting cheers from my fellow front-of-the-pit-ers when a globule landed on their exposed arms. Dan whaled on his kit with somewhat controlled abandon, and then kept us in fits with the requisite dry, British humor in between tracks. Tord, meanwhile, didn’t read anything I just wrote because he’s still too busy flying around the stage like a drunk Snoopy chasing after the Red Baron. Except in this case, the doghouse is a shopping cart, and the World War I battlefield is a slicked up Paradise stage. All in all, the stage presence was a massive check on the checklist of “How to Win Marc Finn Over at a Show.”
The set was so chock full of good times that even the security guards were grinning like idiots. Fortunately for the fans, these good times had almost equal representation from both of their albums. From the instant mosh dance opener, “Our Perfect Disease” to the best sing-along of the night in “Techno Fan,” the newer stuff was absolutely bombastic, culminating in a humongous “arms waving up and down rapidly” rendition of “Jump into the Fog” and equally insane “Tokyo (Vampires and Wolves).” Excellent choices from their first album rounded out the set perfectly, with particular highlights coming in the form of the plodding, glorious “Party in the Forest (Where’s Laura?)” and “Here Comes the Anxiety.”
This isn’t even touching the encore of “Let’s Dance to Joy Division,” which really needs no explanation if you’re a fan of The Wombats or just life in general. But what came after that encore was nothing short of astounding.
I can’t believe I’ve gone this far in the review without mentioning Morning Parade, the opening act. I’ve rarely seen people that go to shows specifically for the opening band, but five complete idiots, er, people standing behind me were doing just that. I ragged on them for the hour we were standing together, and by the time their set was finished, I could see why they felt satisfied enough to leave. Leaving was an awful, awful thing to do, but at least I understood it. Morning Parade killed it.
Anyways, back to the second encore song. I don’t know or care what it was called, but all I know is that The Wombats decided to celebrate their last tour date with Morning Parade by having them come back out to the stage decked out in full superhero regalia (Gandalf, inexplicably, was also involved) and jam on it. Relentlessly. Whatever volume and craziness the crowd had was being maximized onstage, as eventually the song ceased to be a song and the bands started jumping on each other, ripping each other’s costumes off, and tackling each other. We were screaming so loud that when the first wave of crowd surfing occurred, we couldn’t even hear their frantic instructions for the other band members to do the same. Which they then did.
I left the Paradise more tired than I’d felt in years, more bewildered than I’d felt since watching “Cabin in the Woods,” and more happy than I’d felt since I heard The Wombats’ YouTube performance at Lowlands two years ago. I’m going to go see The Walkmen on Friday, and I’m just as excited to see those guys. But as far as I’m concerned, unless that show also ends with Batman and Robin throwing their guitars aside and bear-hugging three crazed Liverpool guys at once, I’ll have already been to the best show of the week.
By: Marc Finn