The Wombats @ Capitol 02/08/08

Many are under the impression that wombats are slow, fat and hairy. However there is a kind of Wombat that evolved in 2006 in Liverpool, that in the space of a year, has spread across at least three continents like STDs at a festival. These Wombats are fast. They can zip across Australia to play a gig in Perth on Saturday, and Splendour in Byron Bay on Sunday Afternoon. They have been so virulently successful that they haven’t enough songs for a full set, and the Capitol gig was all over and done with at 10.30. Just over a dollar a minute is pretty good for a band who was virtually unheard of this time last year. Considering the crush of the crowd on the dance floor it was probably a good thing that the set was just 40 minutes all told, otherwise there’d have been casualties; the punters loved them. Really loved them.

Support act, Cut off your Hands played a strong set which was well received by pleasantly surprised early birds, who were probably expecting another support act to play first. They began before 9pm, probably so the Wombats could make it to the red-eye back to New South Wales for their Splendour date. Since Cut off your Hands headlined a gig at Amps the night before, which you can see here, there is not much else to say, beyond what Fasterlouder reviewer Rock Princess had to say.

The Headliners played all of their songs, ramping the crowd up to rabid levels with each successive radio single. Crowd response to Kill the Director, Lost in the Post, Moving to New York, Backfire at the Disco and the rest would have been highlights had they occurred in isolation; but what happens when over seventy percent of the songs played have that reaction? The thousand people who had near death experiences during Lets Dance to Joy Division because they could not jump any higher, sweat any harder, sing any louder, or breathe for that matter, made that song the highlight, just because there could not possibly be any more to come.

There were plenty of shirts off in the crowd, some Liverpool Football Club supporters, a Casio keyboard war, singing drummers and drumming singers. There was no time to consider anything except staying alive in the crush, no time to think about anything but the moment. Although the moment was over in a flash, the people were left sated, having heard all of their favourite songs, danced the soles off their feet and screamed their voices away early enough that there was still time to make it to another gig and see another headline act.

If only Harold Bishop could have seen them, he would have been blub blubbing in his chins with amazement. Like you, he can see the gallery here