The Wombats, Barrowland Glasgow
Jonathan Geddes
Three stars
Perhaps Wombats fans have discovered the elixir for eternal youth. Three albums and nine years into their career the band might be, yet their fanbase at this Barrowland comprised so many excitable teenagers that the evening felt half gig, half school disco. The prosaic truth lies more with the fact that the trio's mostly exuberant pop will always attract a youthful following, yet arguably isn't substantial enough to retain them.
That said, they're a boisterous watch, and turning their set into a procession of party-friendly anthems meant that a flaw on record, singer Matthew 'Murph' Murphy's sometimes clunky lyrics, was lost under a volley of noise. Not for nothing was the trusty "here we, here we..." chant the night's most popular refrain, soundtracking an amusing selection of items (pints, tops, a shoe...) that were being flung into the air.
Their newest record, Glitterbug, continues to owe a debt to electronics, and provided a couple of highlights - the precision tooled synth-pop of Greek Tragedy and 1980s flavoured Headspace were smooth, while Emoticons added a funkier feel to matters. They contrasted with their earliest, guitar-centric material, of which the excitable Kill the Director carried the most pep.
The rest of the set was less convincing. The three-piece have a tendency to wheel through some unremarkable ideas, and the middle of the set dragged heavily, whether on bland newbies like Be Your Shadow or tedious shout-a-long Techno Fan. These tunes tended to follow a familiar path, blurring together so much that they became swiftly disposable. At least ubiquitous indie club night favourite Let's Dance To Joy Division avoided such a fate, providing a final opportunity for youthful enthusiasm in the encore.
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