If you don’t know Matthew Murphy, you’ll definitely know his band.
They’re called The Wombats and they’re a pretty big deal. You know, headline arena shows, best-selling album-level Big Deal. Oh, and as anyone under the age of twenty-six will tell you, they’re one of a tiny handful of bands whom you can pick literally any track from their first two albums and be able to guarantee that somebody, somewhere, has bounced around like a maniac to it at an indie disco.
That, dear reader, is what we call a proper band.
Matthew Murphy is not, however, merely the frontman of The Wombats.
He’s also the mastermind behind a new ‘indie-pop ensemble’ that goes by the name of Love Fame Tragedy. We caught their debut live show at last year’s Reading Festival and were, frankly, rather impressed.
So, when they announced that they’d be heading out on a UK tour at the start of this year, we knew that we had to head along; and, we knew that it was our Serious Journalistic Duty to give you, the lovely readership of One on One, the full lowdown.
Here’s what we learned:
1) This is no ordinary side-project.
Let’s not beat around the bush here: when we hear the words ‘lead singer’s side-project’, most of us can barely disguise an eye-roll. After all, isn’t that just code for ‘the singer wrote some songs that weren’t good enough for the next album, so they’ve thwacked some keyboards on them and claimed that they’ve been “desperate to explore this side of their creativity for a while”’?
Well, generally, yes. But, sometimes, it’s not – and, Murph Off Of The Wombats’ new band, Love Fame Tragedy, falls rather firmly into the latter category. He hasn’t just taken a load of would-be Wombats B-sides, chucked a few session musicians on there, and given it a new name; he’s actually taken the time to pen a host of brand new bangers specifically for this new band. Isn’t that just lovely?
2) The novelty of seeing an arena-sized Rock Star in a tiny venue will never, ever grow old.
(And, if you’re the pissed-up twenty-something in the front row of the Bristol show, neither will yelling ‘PLAY A WOMBATS SONG’. Apparently.)
3) But, that doesn’t mean that Murph and co. weren’t still Very Good Indeed
We’ve seen Murph ‘do his thing’ in his day job before. Sure, the last time, it was on a slightly larger than the one Bristol’s Thekla has to offer: specifically, the Main Stage at last year’s Reading Festival. Yet, despite the (relatively) small size of Bristol’s Thekla, he still manages to spend the entirety of tonight’s show bounding around the stage like a freshly-charged Duracell Bunny. We admire that.
4) Brand New Brain is their best song, but Backflip’s a close second.
An honourable mention must also go to the absolute #bop that is My Cheating Heart. Oh, and Hardcore. Let’s not forget about 5150, either. And… Oh, look, let’s just face it. The man really knows how to write a pop song. He is, after all, the guy who brought us Moving To New York, Let’s Dance To Joy Division, Techno Fan, and a host of other certifiable bops that almost certainly soundtracked any Inbetweeners-era teenager’s formative years. So, why would you be surprised to learn that every track on Love Fame Tragedy’s setlist was a stone-cold banger?
And, finally: we learnt that we seriously cannot wait to get our hands on their debut album.
If there’s one thing we took away from going a Love Fame Tragedy show, it’s that they’ve managed to put together enough 10/10 indie bangers to fill a setlist before they’ve even released their debut album. We’re not talking the kind of songs that you hear on the radio and think ‘Oh, that’s a bit of alright’; we’re talking about the kind that you run over to blast out at full volume as soon as you hear the first notes.
He might have only put out his last Wombats album a couple of years ago, but it’s clear that Matthew ‘Murph’ Murphy is showing no signs of slowing down; and, if the tunes showcased on this tour are anything to go by, we should be thanking our lucky stars for it.