Palladium, Cologne, Germany
30th November 2011
The Wombats, The Good Natured
THE WOMBATS were coming to Cologne. Reason enough for many people to postpone everything that’s possible to travel to the city for a fun evening. With two highly regarded albums and an EP in the pipeline this, should become a joyful show at the venue.
The Good Natured
THE GOOD NATURED is an electro pop outfit formed in 2008 around siblings Sarah & Hamish McIntosh. Both were previously involved in musical projects already from an early age. The band’s debut EP ‘Warriors’ was released in July of their foundation year and roused a lot of attention with it. A second self-released EP named ‘Your Body Is A Machine’ would follow until the band gets signed to Parliophone and releases ‘Skeleton’ in this year’s June. THE GOOD NATURED is Sarah McIntosh, Hamish McIntosh and George Hinton. http://www.thegoodnatured.co.uk/ / https://www.facebook.com/thegoodnatured
Music & Performance
The first ones to enter the stage were THE GOOD NATURED. The house was pretty packed already when they entered and the younger audience seemed to enjoy the show, even though it wasn’t their main reason for being here. The band usually exhibits a rather electronic sound with influences of bands like LADYTRON or TEARS FOR FEARS, which have actually been cited as one of their main influences, and calls its style Pop Noir. On stage though, the band adds a little more organic edge with drums and bass! Sarah’s vocals were absolutely on top. Many bands of that genre would kill for a vocalist like that. The British accent isn’t suppressed here which gives the performance a nice colour. The quite short performance ended with a song called ‘Skeleton’ and a well-deserved applause.
Rating
Music: 8
Performance: 7
Sound: 7
Light: 6
Total: 7.2 / 10
The Wombats
The foundation of THE WOMBATS dates back to 2003 when the future members would meet at the Liverpool Institute of Performing Arts. A debut single, titled ‘Girls, Boys, and Marsupials’ was released in 2006 in Japan only. A string of single releases followed before the debut album ‘The Wombats Proudly Present: A Guide To Love, Loss & Desperation’, followed by a tour of Europe. IN April 2008 the first US release ‘The Wombats EP’ was released. By September 2010, the band announced their second album would be close to completion. Eventually titled ‘The Wombats Proudly Present... This Modern Glitch’, the album dropped in April. THE WOMBATS are Matthew Murphy, Dan Haggis and Tord Øverland-Knudsen. http://www.thewombats.co.uk/ / https://www.facebook.com/thewombatsuk
Music & Performance
THE WOMBATS were eagerly awaited already as several comments on the “long” rebuilding break gave away. The bigger was the joy when the trio finally entered the stage to present ‘Our Perfect Disease’. It was like the people around me had completely changed within the fraction of a second. All were dancing and singing with happy smiles on their faces once they had found a place when rushing back in after the break. The band themselves cut to the chase quickly and short time after the first chords sounded started performing vividly. ‘Kill The Director’ was the second track and upon starting had all the people singing loudly along to the lyrics and given its upbeat fashion they wouldn’t need to worry about people standing still. ‘Girls/Cars’ continued with mid-tempo beats and a slight pop punk attitude. ‘Party In A Forest’ cooled things down a bit for a while and would’ve been a perfect fit in a romantic movie if it wasn’t for the lyrics. ‘Jump Into The Fog’ lingered on that road, keeping it much calmer even. ‘Patricia The Stripper’ hit with the crowd quite well. If that was due to the lyrics about a guy falling in love with “A girl of the Night”? Who knows! 
But the fact remains that it was one hell o f a crowd pleaser, just like ‘Techno Fan’ proved to be. ‘Last Night I Dreamt’, another track off the recently released second album spread some melancholy moods amongst the people before ‘Lost In The Post’ went straight back up again. With ‘1996’ coming up then, the band went straight back to the past, reminiscing of times long gone. We witnessed a few enjoyable minutes with THE WOMBATS though the target group of the band seems to be a younger one. But actually that’s a good sign, isn’t it?
Setlist
01. Our Perfect Disease
02. Kill The Director
03. Girls/Fast Cars
04. Party In A Forest
05. Jump Into The Fog
06. Patricia The Stripper
07. Schumacher The Champagne
08. Techno Fan
09. Last Night I Dreamt
10. Lost In The Post
11. 1996
12. Little Miss Pipedream
13. Moving To New York
14. My First Wedding
15. Tokyo
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16. Anti-D
17. Walking Disasters
18. Let’s Dance To Joy Division
Rating
Music: 7
Performance: 7
Sound: 7
Light: 7
Total: 7 / 10
All pictures by Daniela Vorndran (http://www.vorndranphotography.com / http://www.black-cat-net.de/ / http://www.myspace.com/vorndranphotography / http://www.facebook.com/blackcatnet)
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