Wombats @ The Green Room

On my first assignment for UK Undercurrent, I got free entry to the rescheduled Wombats gig in Welwyn Garden City. Myself and my friend Kalyan were collecting emails for the Wombats Mailing List and handing out badges. There were two support acts, the first of which I wasn't really paying any attention to, and which I remember as loud more than anything else, and the second, 'The Mourning After', despite having a really really horrendously awful name, sounded like they have potential to become good. A lot of the past gigs I've been to I have been around the average of everyone at the venue, and it was strange to be at a gig where almost everyone was about ten years older than me. It figures really, seeing as The Green Room is the upstairs to a pub.

Anyway, the band were on at ten and started out with what seemed an impromptu (yet clearly well-rehearsed) A capella rendition of 'Girls, Boys and Marsupials', to a rapture of applause. The crowd were relatively calm at the beginning, and understandably: the stage is about four inches of the ground, the ceiling is low, there's no crowd barrier - it didn't look like it was gonna be a night of wild dancing. However, a few songs in a moshpit erupted, and for some reason I thought it might be a good idea to jump into the swaying mass of twenty-something rugby types. Never Again.
They went through the majority of their songs in a set that lasted nearly an hour, and in between there was a lot of ruminating about the meaning of their songs, and general anecdotes. A memorable one was lead singer Matt Murphy telling us about how, on a train in Germany, they had seen some rabbits 'frolicking' in the distance, and a friendly bit of banter had started about whether or not rabbits are nocturnal. Several hours of internet searching later, they discovered rabbits are in fact most active in twilight hours, or to use the proper term, crepuscular.
There were lots of songs I hadn't heard before, including upcoming single 'Let's Dance To Joy Division', released in October. The finale track, 'Kill The Director', saw the crowd going so crazy the front row were falling over themselves and the second row putting a foot on the stage in order to avoid a massive pile-up, and the security acting as a human barrier. However, this was nothing compared to encore track 'Backfire At The Disco' that saw an all-out stage invasion. I must admit that I was one of the naughty few who spilled onto the stage (in my defence, it was mainly to avoid one of the rugby-types who'd had a few) but the band played on regardless. Absolute mayhem.
The Mourning After: www.myspace.com/tmaband
The Wombats: www.myspace.com/thewombatsuk
DOWNLOAD: Wombats - Derail And Crash