July 18, 2022

Wet Leg – Tuning Fork July 17, 2022 (Concert Review)

Wet Leg, “Britain’s buzziest band” performed at Auckland’s Tuning Fork on this wintry Sunday night and gave the people what they want!

Excuse me.

What?

That’s right, fresh off their debut at Glastonbury, where they were given “hero status” by the NME, sharing stages with Billie Eilish, Phoebe Bridgers and Paul McCartney, Wet Leg made their New Zealand debut at the relatively tiny Tuning Fork.

So, social distancing be damned, the sold out crowd stuffed themselves into the venue, everyone wanting to get a good look at Rhian Teasdale and Hester Chambers as they run through numbers from what will mostly likely be 2022’s Album of the Year.

Daffodils

But first, we have Daffodils to warm things up. We’ve covered these guys fairly regularly in these pages and they headlined their own show at this very venue just last month, so we’ll just say that they performed admirably and get on to Wet Leg.

The wait between Daffodils and Wet Leg seemed interminable (I’m sure it was average) but finally, at 9:20pm Wet leg made their appearance.

Wet Leg

Wet Leg With a screech and a squall (and later a scream) the band (Joshua Omead Mobarki – keys, Ellis Durand –bass, Henry Holmes –drums) launched into Wet Dream driven by Holmes’ thumping beat and Rhian’s need to see Buffalo ’66 on DVD.

In a matter of seconds the crowd was beamed up into the weird, wonderful world of Wet Leg.

“Nice to see you”, says Rhian, managing to sound both coy and shy simultaneously…much like her music.

The 55 minute set seemed to whizz by, featuring 9 tunes from the album and a few newbies (apparently the second album is already in the can).

While the music was even more fun live and in person than listening to the album, the highlights of the show were the moments between songs…someone in the audience offered up a hand-made tea towel…they was a Star Trek/Truck pun shouted out that got a laugh from the band and, in general, this was simply a celebration of the best new music 2022 has to offer in front of 300 or so adoring fans.

Rhian let out a formidable scream during Ur Mum, then introduced a new song, I Want To Be Abducted (By A UfO). We learn that fantasizing about alien abduction is a favourite hobby on The Isle Of Wight (but not the probing part).

Then after Too Late Now we are told, “We were supposed to do a song but we didn’t do it”

After some discussion we are treated to Life Is A Rollercoaster

“Let’s give it a go!” urges Rhian.

“We’ll play it for you guys, but we won’t play it for Rhian”, says Hester

Everything leads up to Chaise Longue and when we get there the Tuning Fork erupts.

So, now, on the morning after, I can spread some butter on my muffin and say I saw Wet Leg at the beginning of what looks to be a very interesting/exciting musical journey, hopefully you did too.

Marty Duda

Click on any image to view a photo gallery by Ivan Karczewski:

Wet Leg:

Daffodils:

Wet Leg setlist: