The WombatsEves Karydas is the perfect soundtrack for the hot night with her uplifting, synth-soaked pop hits from recently released debut album Summerskin. Her sweet and crisp vocals boast dreamy falsettos and she maximises the grand acoustics of the theatre to really belt out a few powerful and soaring choruses during Wildest Ones. Karydas has a strong stage presence and it’s refreshing to see her really having fun in the moment as she dances along to some of her more upbeat tracks including Further Than The Planes Fly and Couch. We instantly have her catchy hooks stuck in our heads.
It seems like Australian’s favourite marsupial band The Wombats never leave the country since they tour here so much. But time and time again their loyal fans stick by them and keep coming to their shows. They were here last year to celebrate the ten-year anniversary of their first album, A Guide To Love, Loss & Desperation, and just recently for Splendour In The Grass, but they are currently touring their latest album Beautiful People Will Ruin Your Life.
Red lights flicker and sirens ring for a grand entrance. “You all have to stand up or this isn’t going to work,” shouts lead singer Matthew Murphy to the crowd on the edge of their assigned seating. The stage comes to life with an engaging backdrop of bursting colours featuring wombat emoticons in different shapes and forms. The trio have a knack for winding the crowd up with their non-stop infectious energy, even if it is a Monday night. As always, they encourage singing along at the top of our voices. The only thing that’s really holding the crowd back is the venue – it’s hard to dance and jump around, but they try to help us knock down the jail-like bars trapping us between seats for Techno Fan as green lasers stream out at the audience.
It’s The Wombats’ first time performing Ice Cream in Melbourne and they have fun with visuals of melting wombat-head ice cream cones to accompany the sugary sweet anthem. “This is the first time I’m gonna talk about fruit, but it will probably not be the last tonight,” says Murphy. He then launches into Lemon To A Knife Fight, followed by Pink Lemonade and I Don’t Know Why I Like You But I Do where he sings about cherries and oranges to continue this theme. Dancers in wombat suits join the band on stage for Let’s Dance To Joy Division and some punters get so excited they break free from the chains of their seats and run down to the stage for a quick mosh in the aisles before security can catch them.
Murphy takes on an intimate solo acoustic version of Lethal Combination to start off the encore and the full band returns to smash out a big finale of Turn and Greek Tragedy, which is dedicated to their crew, who are feeling jet-lagged as hell. “If you’ve had half the fun we’ve had tonight then that’s not half bad,” exclaims Murphy as the audience hangs onto every second of the supercharged final chorus.
