The Wombats are young and exuberant, the Wombats are English (from Liverpool) and you can hear it at each syllable they pronounce, which was probably another element of seduction for all these girls cheering up, front row of the Red Bull stage at the Culture Collide festival last Sunday.
And this is rare for bands which play that loud, the vocals were indeed very clear and distinct, almost comprehensible all the time, despite all the moving and jumping performed on stage. The trio didn’t stop a second between their series of radio-friendly upbeat-poppy songs, and probably won the award of the most dynamic-youthful band of the evening. They were playing on a relatively small stage and performed as if there was a million people there, which was certainly a very good point for them,… plus they had humor and were encouraging the sing-along and the screaming.
Of course, all this sounded way too boy-band-easy-melodies for me most of the time, despite all the positive energy they were putting into the show, but the lyrics were also kind of entertaining,… ‘This is no Bridget Jones’ shouted Matthew Murphy during ‘Kill the Director’, and the crowd was clapping and screaming with him. What? They have a song about this Renée Zellweger movie? As I say the lyrics were entertaining but sometimes a little ridiculous too: ’Please allow me to be your antidepressant/I too am prescribed as freely/As any decongestant’ he sang in ‘Anti-D’, and the song continued with even more metaphors about prescriptions … but, you know, there is a way to use metaphors,… however I can easily forgive them, they were too enthusiastic, and were able to do some real damage on stage despite being only three on stage.
They announced ‘Jumping into the Fog’, another song from their second album, ‘This Modern Glitch’ recorded in LA, and took the occasion to schmooze a little with the crowd, saying it was ‘always good to be back in LA’.
It was a soaring sing-along choruses galore, an avalanche of happy synth and crescendo guitars, the arms and fists were most of the time in the air, and there is no doubt the three guys knew how to put up a party ambiance, drawing a large crowd for the last act of the night.
They were riding the boy band clapping-harmonies at each song, and they were easy to like because of all this energetic catchiness, but also easy to hate because of this overdose of exuberant vocals,… but at the end, they had enough up-front-sincerity and to be totally lovable, just ask all these screaming females! 
