Live Review: The Wombats - The O2, London 19/03/2025
The Wombats bring their winning charm and wild tunes to a rapturous O2 Arena.
With their bluesy groove on tracks like ‘Vanilla’, opening support Red Rum Club have an Arctic Monkeys AM era blues groove that primes the crowd nicely from the get go. Opening with’Eric’, Everything Everything make a very theatrical entrance. ‘Enter the Mirror’ has an irresistible dance groove and the lyric “Hope to be a DJ somewhere in the afterlife”resonates with the idea of music being a transcendental power that never dies.
The Wombats strike a chord with those of us in the house who find themselves in the catch-22 situation of loving a good time on a night out but not always wanting to make the effort to socialise and go out. Lead singer Murph tells NME that new single ‘Sorry I’m Late, I Don’t Want To Come’ tries to articulate this feeling of “Constantly defaulting to a Lone Wolf mindset, and what the real life consequences of that might be”.
Exhibiting a visually mesmerising display on the huge stage screens behind them, their stage show matches the flamboyance of the band’s personality that fans have come to know and love. Its psychedelic imagery reflects Murph’s state of mind that inspired their latest album ‘Oh! The Ocean’. As he eloquently told NME on the inception of the album: “I took my family down to the beach around Orange County way, the kids were off playing and I was just stood there looking at the ocean. It was a very mushroomy experience”. Their rabble rousing debut album hit ‘Moving To New York’ delights fans with it’s intoxicating tempo and hedonistic lyrics, as well as ‘Kate Moss’ with its fanciful line: “You look like Kate Moss back in 1993”.
Pausing to tease the crowd, Murph jests with his jovial Scouse charm: “We are from Liverpool but we spent yesterday singing Everton chants so that was interesting for everyone involved, including us”. Never a band to take themselves too seriously, his fellow band member briefly exited the stage to don a furry monkey outfit, with Murph quipping: “Don’t know if you’ve ever seen a marsupial play a brass instrument- on your list up there with eat seven bowls of cheerios in a row” in his dry John Lennon - like Scouse dra, much to the amusement of a giddy crowd.
In a moment of technical chaos, the guitarist’s strings seem to give up on him, and he jokes as they play fan favourite ‘Kill The Director’: “My guitar has shat the bed somehow!”, the absurdity of it leaving the audience reeling as the band take a second to try and compose themselves and continue.
Danceflooor filler ‘Tokyo (Vampires and Wolves)’ evokes sheer hysteria from fans, every word bellowed back at this midway point in the set. The infectious ‘The World’s Not Out To Get Me, I Am’ from their latest album compels with its evocative opening lyric: “Judge me all you like, just tryna pass the time from a hot tub down in hell/You know Pandora’s Box, gonna lure me to the rocks she’s not good for my health”.
Their breakthrough banger ‘Let’s Dance To Joy Division’ inspires an indie disco fever that fans lose themselves to towards the end of their breathtaking set. This is made all the more spectacular by the appearance of a group of dancing wombats and stunning confetti in fantastically flamboyant fashion, before a superb encore with ‘Greek Tragedy’ providing a majestic ending to a joyous performance that leaves the fans wanting more.
Words by Brendan Sharp
Photography by Abigail Shii
