Ramblings of a Redhead Music Snob

To describe a band as cute and cuddly would probably horrify most bands, but when you call yourselves The Wombats and show up to the gig with a stuffed animal, what can you expect. While they might look cute and cuddly they sure do rock. Infectious jangly hooks with post-punk/pop-punk melodies and somewhere in that you have The Wombats.

The Wombats, hailing from Liverpool, performed their first show in the states last night at The Annex. Wooo! If New Yorkers were happy that this was their first stop, the band seemed even happier to be playing in the States. They were headed off to the West Coast to play Popscene in SF tonight.

Their show started out as a Barbershop Trio (or is that triplet?). The 3 guys came out and sang a really catchy song (sans instruments) about marsupials! yay marsupials! It was hard not to be singing it along with them. Once that was done, they all went to their instruments and started playing like there was no tomorrow. With songs like “Lets Dance to Joy Division” and their single “Kill The Director” – its really hard not to start dancing.

The lead singer was very talkative and mentioned things about how we should do the waltz to one of the songs, and whoever waltzed best would win either a shirt, or a dirty nappy of the drummer. Sadly, no New Yorkers claimed to be doing the waltz. Next, he asked about swinging? Naturally, a few cackles were heard in the back, whether it was for actually swing dancing or other things, one will never know.

The show was just what was expected. With some songs sounding reminiscent of Maximo Park, it made for a great night of fun. The bands were asking for hand-clapping and lots of dancing and the crowd didn’t disappoint. Wombats are rumoured to be back in February so if you werent fortunate to catch them this time around, Feb is just around the corner.