There was an eager crowd awaiting the appearance of The Wombats, an English rock band formed in Liverpool in 2003, for their Beautiful People Will Ruin Your Life tour at the O2 Guidlhall in Southampton on Thursday 29th March. Whilst waiting they weren’t disappointed by the two superb support acts.
First on stage was BLOXX. A four piece alt rock/indie band from London fronted by Ophelia leading the way with her strong vocals. Their songs are catchy but still have that indie rock feel that make them unique.
Then came The Night Café. An up and coming teen band, also from Liverpool, who produce songs with great guitar riffs and amazing vocals. Their latest release Mixed Signals had a great vibe and the crowd loved it.
Lead vocalist and guitarist Matthew Murphy, drummer Ben Haggis and bassist Todd Øverland Knudsen all appeared on stage for their final show of the tour as the illuminated wombat in the background opened his eyes to start the concert with their brand new single ‘Cheetah Tongue’. This was followed by ‘Give me a try’, ‘1996’ and ‘Kill the director’from their three previous albums. Their other new single ‘Black Flamingo’ proved a hit with the crowd. The next song was ‘White Eyes’ which is the fifth song off their new album.
The following songs ‘Techno Fan’ and ‘Emoticons’ were from their previous albums. They then played ‘Lemon to a Knife Fight’ from their current album and a number of lemons were thrown on stage from the crowd which they said had never happened before! Their tenth song was ‘I don’t know why I like you but I do’ was another new one and preceded ‘Pink Lemonade’ from their 2015 album, Glitterbug. The next song was their 2011 single ‘Jump into the fog’, then the hit ‘Moving to New York’ and ‘Lethal Combination’. Lastly ‘Let’s Dance to Joy Division’ played out which was their second single from their 2007 album and they were accompanied on stage by a number of giant brown wombats!
After a good few minutes of cheering from the crowd, the band returned to the stage to play three more songs – ‘Turn’, ‘Tokyo’ and ‘Greek Tragedy’. All in all, the band were really supported and the crowd left satisfied with their evening.