Live Review :: The Wombats @ The Annex [3.17.08]

The Wombats look a little like hell. They tell us they are sleep-deprived. They tell us they've been in seven time zones in two weeks. Their lead-singer looks a little bloated and is losing his voice - facts they don't need to tell us. It's debatably St. Patrick's Day on the Lower East Side and The Wombats look a little like hell.

Frontman, Matt Murphy is sweating through his green sweat shirt in little viral colonies. As little spots of sweat establish foothold on the front of his chest, they slowly expand to include other sweat-spots until there is an outbreak of wetness darkening the shamrock green. In a time-lapse video this would look like a reverse Pangaea - disparate parts coming together to form a larger whole. If he was working less hard, you might think he was sick. If The Wombats were playing less hard, you might question their ability to make it through the set. Murphy's voice strains but not from illness. He sweats but not from fever. This exhaustion isn't just from time change or sleep deprivation. It's from playing this hard in seven time zones and how the fuck can you sleep on that?

The Wombats open with "Lost In The Post," a song, ostensibly, about dating a girl who is all sunshine and rainbows when you're all rain storms and Wuthering Heights. There's some irony afoot when a band this exuberant addresses being too depressed for a girl who just wants to watch Mary Poppins. Then again, irony ain't a stranger and halfway through the set they play "Let's Dance To Joy Division" and everyone shouts the lyrics,"Let's dance to Joy Division/and celebrate the irony." A little like the irony of a band this tired playing a set with this much fervor. It. just. doesn't. wash.

Fast-forward to the end; instead of an encore, The Wombats' drummer makes a reference to cutting through the bullshit and why bother with the charade of going backstage when you and I know damn well that they've got two more songs they're planning to play. They've already played "Moving To New York," a song that uniquely lights up New Yorkers to feel successful and important based solely on zip code, and it's easy to wonder what the band has left to close this show. But, for a second-ever show in New York, The Wombats save "Backfire At The Disco" as their final note.

The song is about things going abjectly awful at a nightclub - about totally, completely bombing with woman. That seems a little out of sorts for band who just killed The Annex for the past 45 minutes. The irony is things have been going pretty well. But then again, a worn out band shouldn't have played this set in the first place. And again, the dark green sweat spots on Matt Murphy aren't simple exhaustion but they are why he'll feel a little worse tomorrow than he did today. Because sometimes you give enough to look like hell. And you can't fucking sleep on that.