Liverpool indie trio The Wombats brought good-natured chaos to the stage, pairing a high energy performance with songs laden with lyrical sharpness underneath their melodic hooks. Guitarist/singer Matthew Murphy commented, “we’re not as popular in the States, but we fucking love playing here.” That may change, given the surprisingly youthful age of the audience for a band that’s been at it for over 20 years.
Perhaps working against the band was a random sampling of people who love them and know the songs but, other than “the Joy Division song,” struggled to name them. Regardless, Murphy, bassist Tord Øverland Knudsen, and drummer Dan Haggis appeared relaxed but locked in, performing with the confidence of a band that knows its catalog connects, as demonstrated by an eager, bouncing room fully invested in every chorus.
The concert started with favorites “Moving to New York” and “Techno Fan,” followed shortly by “Sorry I’m Late, I Didn’t Want to Come,” one of the cleverest songs off their 2025 album Oh! The Ocean that speaks to the introvert in all of us.
The band’s abundant tunefulness belies their penchant for lyrics with a biting humor. “Pink Lemonade” arrived bright and sunny, masking jealousy and unresolved feelings about a former flame beneath its sugary surface, disguising emotional complexity inside irresistibly light packaging. Murphy’s knack for framing longing through pop culture surfaced again on “Kill the Director,” a song built around pining for a woman imagined through the soft-focus lens of a romantic comedy.
“Blood on the Hospital Floor” takes bleak imagery and delivers it with a buoyancy that problems aren’t so hard to fix. It’s a Wombats hallmark: confronting anxiety, regret, or emotional messiness with melodies that invite movement rather than introspection paralysis. And of course, there’s “Dancing to Joy Division,” a dance floor catalyst referencing the famously bleak post-punk band.
Lyrically and stylistically, there’s a lot to love. Live, no one demonstrates that enthusiasm more than Knudsen, who dances, prances, stomps and jumps about the floor whenever he’s not obligated to sing or touch a few keyboard notes. His bass work powers both the band and the audience through the set, his enthusiasm just as apparent on his face and his audience connection. Let him loose, like on the muscular “Ready for the High” or the crescendo of “Method to the Madness,” and good stuff indeed.
And what’s with “The Wombats” anyway? They’re native to Australia, not England. Reportedly, they called each other “You stupid wombat” in their student years and went with that on a gig poster when they needed a name. For a tongue-in-cheek band, it should be no surprise that several costumed wombats took the stage during the course of the evening, plus a very small stuffed one sitting atop the bass drum.
Overall, there wasn’t a slow spot throughout the set, demonstrating the depth of their catalog and the strength of their songs into their most current releases, performed and sung to perfection. Early in their U.S. tour, The Wombats played like a band fully at home, their Liverpool roots intact and an American audience happily dancing along.
The Wombats’ U.S. tour continues through February. If you’re even a casual fan, grab the tickets and go!
Setlist:
Encore:
The Asymptomatics website reads “Welcome to an inevitably sweaty dance party.” This was hinted before the doors were open with the band members posing with friends and fans for photos in front of the venue. An hour and a half later, the stageful of members all but tapped their feet, waiting patiently for the “Go!” That came, and off they went, most notably singer and keyboardist Maxwell Mathieu. An Athens band (and aren’t all Georgia bands from there?), a subset of the group started playing together during Covid, the founding appropriately immortalized in the band’s name. Fun, wild energy to watch and hear, with no shortage of fans attending and even more won over during the course of their set. Great interview here.
