The Wombats released their fifth studio album “Fix Yourself, Not the World” in mid-January 2022, and a few days later the band started their US tour to promote it.
The Chicago stop of the tour took place at Park West, and the venue was packed with fans from all ages ready to sing and dance the night away, and with the first songs of the set being “Flip Me Upside Down” and “This Car Drives All by Itself” the whole room started bouncing at the rhythm of the music. Most impressive was that their new album was released a couple of weeks before the show, but the whole crowd was singing the lyrics back.
The setlist was a good mix of fans favorites like “Moving To New York” and “Techno Fan”, as well as new songs that will become classics on future The Wombats concerts like “If YouEver Leave, I’m Coming with You” and “Ready for the High” in which their tour manager dressed up as a giant wombat and messed with the band members and ‘played’ a plastic trumpet.
The Liverpool trio formed by Matt Murphy, Todd Knudsen and Dan Haggins, have been together for almost 20 years, and the chemistry they have together on stage it’s better than ever. You can tell by their smiles and looks they gave to each other that they genuinely have fun and enjoy playing their songs on stage. If you add the energy the crowd brings to the show it results in one of the best rock shows out there.
The climax of the show reached with songs like “Kill The Director,” “Tokyo (Vampires andWolves)“ and “Greek Tragedy”, where not a single person in the crowd stayed on their seats.The end of the main set came with “Greek Tragedy.”
The bands returned for an encore which started with “Method to Madness”, and this song saved as a premonition of what was coming when they started playing with “Let’s Dance ToJoy Division”, but tonight everybody was dancing to The Wombats, and the whole venue erupted in cheers and the crowd sang louder than the bands. The end of the show arrived with “Turn” and the promise of the band to come back in the summer to play a festival atGrant Park.
The Wombats is one of the most energetic and fun live shows you will ever see, and we encourage you to go see them the next time they play in your city. You won’t regret
THE WOMBATS
Photos + Review by Diego Vigueras | Exclusively for Music, Why Not!